Chronicle Endorses Sheriff Focusing Mainly on His Support of Citation Option

In endorsing Greg Hamilton for Sheriff, the Austin Chronicle agrees with us that APD is "dragging its feet" on implementation of the Citation Option. Here is part of the endorsement (bold added):

"Travis Co. Sheriff: Greg Hamilton

"Although incumbent Hamilton has recently been criticized for allowing too-generous jail access to federal immigration authorities, he has otherwise held hands off on immigration enforcement, saying it would detract from fighting crime, and he has in general continued and expanded the better traditions of local law enforcement in recent years. Specifically, his office quickly adopted the "cite-and-release" option for minor offenses made available under state law while the Austin Police Department was still dragging its feet – and he no doubt had an influence on the larger department to get with the program. ...."

Citation Option Featured in the Statesman: Police Union Gives Green Light

The Austin American-Statesman reports on the pending citation option for APD, but fails to mention the commitment by APD to have it in place by Nov. 3rd. APD has yet to explain to the public why they are delaying implementation of something that could have been in place a year ago.

When the Downtown Austin Alliance calls them up to implement the $150,000 "Downtown Quality of Life" initiative, two hours later they are giving a press conference to announce it's immediate implementation. Where there's a will, there's a way. All the supporting entities (see last post) are ready to go - do they merely lack printing up new citations? How long can that really take?

Meanwhile, violent crime is going up and APD is still solving less than half of the violent crime in this city.

Send an email to the Chief: we can't afford the continual delays!

Central Texas Officials Have No Objection to the Citation Option

APD Chief Acevedo put together a meeting of Central Texas criminal justice officials that took place on September 4, 2008 - the one mentioned in our previous blog and in Jordan Smith's story. The Chief brought together thirty-nine law enforcement and court officials from the tri-county region (no small feat in and of itself) and they agreed to work together on this and other improvements. They unanimously agreed that the citation option will be beneficial. Here is an excerpt from their official minutes:

"Issues with Cite and Release

• No objections to moving to cite and release
• Identification mechanism (need more access to technology)
• Need to bring whole legal system together to standardize
• Should look at other jurisdictions that have implemented it.
• Need consistency
• Want to reduce numbers going through booking
• Make sure Judge Evans is briefed before increasing numbers in Travis County (APD potentially 2000)
• Incorporate magistration through other courts – needs to be close to downtown booking
• Most Muni Courts don’t have fingerprint/ID equipment
• Citation has to be what is acceptable to the jurisdiction where it’s filed (same ticket for all three counties)
• Conviction has the same result – front end different not back end of process
• Increases effectiveness and efficiency for officers
• Law enforcement CAN implement without permission from County Attorney
• Need education piece so public understands change is to the front end
• Make sure field release doesn’t impact family violence cases – clear guidelines for officers
• Is a bond being set? It can be a violation of court rather than a failure to appear. Safety issues can be addressed. Bond can be revoked.
• It’s more involved than writing a class C citation
• Arrest for a driving offense - for example, can conditions be imposed? Not being done currently (check with Judge Evans)
• Need to be sure procedures are standardized

General agreement that it would have a positive impact"

Is Chief Acevedo announcing ANOTHER delay?

Jordan Smith continues her probing coverage of cite and release policy implementation at APD. We have been quite pleased since the Sept. 4th meeting to find that regional entities are unanimously on board. Now we wonder why the Chief waited a year to start working on implementation, claiming the delay was due to supposed reluctance by adjacent counties. They arrived at that meeting already in support...so whose relunctance is keeping us from reaching the finish line?

The afternoon of this same meeting amongst the counties, Chief Carter spoke to the Austin Public Safety Task Force and agreed to honor the resolution it passed, asking implementation to occur within 60 days -- which put the target at Nov. 3.

Now, it seems, they are looking at implemenation by year's end, almost 3 months away. The constant delays can't just be due to administrative hang-ups. Send the Chief an email and ask him why delay?

Misplaced Priorities = Lives Lost

Does our public safety budget reflect Austin's values?

The Austin City Council has approved the 2008/2009 budget that Chief Acevedo requested – including millions of new tax dollars for 24 new patrol officers and 61 police cars. As council member McCracken pointed out, 89% of our new spending this year is for public safety.

As our readers know, this money could fulfill other needs if APD stopped choosing to arrest people when they are legally authorized to give them a citation. Over 15,000 people are arrested in Austin every year for citeable offenses – that’s 37% of all APD arrests.

In the meantime, there seems to be widespread agreement that our EMS and fire department are perilously understaffed. EMS is not meeting its 4-minute response time goal and predicts the situation will get worse with an increase in calls next year. That $2.16 million 24-officer price tag could have provided much-needed paramedics. The American Heart Association says that survival rate is reduced by 7-10% for every minute that lapses before a responder reaches a cardiac arrest patient. Those funds could have secured new fire department hires, making a dent in the "4 firefighters per engine" goal - the Public Safety Task Force endorsed a resolution last year to encourage the the city to meet that goal this cycle and we're nowhere near it. If a downtown high rise goes up in flames, we'll likely see death or serious injuries because the city says that we need more than that "4 per engine" goal on a high rise call.

This year Austin was placed on the list of US cities most likely to be at risk of a terrorist attack. If such risk were actually likely, why would we shirk EMS and Fire for a few more beat cops?

Similarly, violent crime is rising in Austin and APD isn't even solving half of them. Yet in the new budget APD set aside NO new money for investigation of crime, violent or otherwise … just more patrol officers to make more arrests.

Chief, we know that increasing arrest numbers every year gets APD more money but is our top priority safety or funding? Please implement the citation option to the fullest extent of the law (see our suggested language) so we can invest more tax dollars in real safety issues.

Violent Crime Rises in Austin While APD Makes Unnecessary Arrests

The FBI just reported that violent crime fell for the first time since 2005 and property crime fell again for the 5th year in a row nationwide. Check out Grits' report.

Meanwhile in Austin, as our report shows, violent crime is rising. APD is below the national average in cases cleared for both violent and property crimes. Another report reveals that communities with lower incarceration, despite the myth, experience greater crime reductions.

More evidence we must put the Citation Option into policy asap and implement it FULLY!

Austin's Neighborhoods Call for Citation Option

More wonderful news ~ the Austin Neighborhoods Council (ANC) voted to endorse the Citation Option! We are grateful to the ANC, which represents almost all neighborhoods in the city, for their support in making Austin a better place. ANC rocks!

Public Safety Taskforce Officially Urges Chief to Act

Great news! Yesterday afternoon the City of Austin Public Safety Taskforce passed this resolution asking Chief Acevedo to implement the Citation Option within 60 days:

CITY OF AUSTIN PUBLIC SAFETY TASKFORCE RESOLUTION to SUPPORT IMPLEMENTATION of the CITATION OPTION

WHEREAS, state law allows for law enforcement officers to issue citations instead of arrest and book people into jail over Class C Misdemeanor charges and as of Sept., 1, 2007, select Class A and Class B misdemeanor charges (HB2391, 80(R); Texas Code of Criminal Procedure, Articles 14.06 and 15.17), which serves to free officers and courts from spending excess time on processing unnecessary arrests as well as free up much needed space in jails;

WHEREAS, many entities throughout Texas have implemented and are implementing the "Citation Option" including the Travis County Sheriff's office so that two inconsistent policies now exist in the County where the City of Austin overlaps; NOW THEREFORE,

BE IT RESOLVED THAT THE PUBLIC SAFETY TASKFORCE

Recommends Police Chief Acevedo implement the Citation Option within 60 days of passage of this resolution and that he update APD's General Orders accordingly.

I want to thank my colleagues on the City of Austin Public Safety Taskforce for taking up this important issue. Please join me in sending props to Chief Acevedo for agreeing with the resolution and urge him to take it seriously and put our recommended written policy in place!

Fewer Arrests, not More Officers!

Our officers are some of the highest paid in the country. They are spending hours on end downtown doing paperwork unnecessarily, and now our Chief has ordered them to give tickets and arrest (on Class C misdemeanor charges) homeless people while 58% of violent crime and 88% of property crime goes unsolved.

The City of Austin will, next week, approve the 2008/2009 budget which includes cuts in several departments to afford adding 24 new officers and 61 cars to APD. But we don’t NEED them! If the Chief is actually committed to implementing the Citation Option as he says, why didn’t he present it as a “Cost Savings Initiative” (on page 20)?

APD is about to get almost $4 million more in addition to their huge new labor contract (24 officers x $90,000 = $2,160,000, and 61 police cars x $27,500 (p.44) = $1,677,500) and since we know we can save at least $5.4 million a year by implementing the Citation Option …if we implemented the citation option we wouldn’t need to hire one more officer or buy one more car! Our officers (and their cars) would no longer be spending large blocks of their on-duty time booking people on unnecessary arrests. Instead, they’d could try to solve some of the 58% of Austin's unsolved violent crimes. It would be nice if some of our violent criminals were not still out on the street committing further crime.

Perhaps then too, EMS could have its Cadet Academy training this year; the seriously understaffed parks department wouldn’t have to put a freeze on 24 vacancies; and we wouldn’t have to cut back library hours and they could afford proper security and janitorial services.

Council says by the time one speaks at the public hearing for the budget, as I did last Thursday, it’s too late to change their mind on these very important matters. If you think that shouldn’t be the case, contact your city council members NOW to tell them they have the power of the purse to stop excessive spending on low-level offenses so that the crime in our City that actually affects the PUBLIC’s SAFETY can be better addressed. Tell them: “no more officers or cars until Chief Acevedo implements the Citation Option!"

How much more are you willing to pay in taxes to cover APD's optional arrests?

How much of your gasoline and grocery budget will you set aside for the tax man this year because of Austin police Chief Acevedo's decision to have Austin police officers arrest over 15,000 people every year in Austin, 37% of all of APD's arrests, when the Texas legislature says those people could have received a citation?

Thanks to Scott Henson at Grits for Breakfast, and to the Austin American Statesman Editorial Board, for pointing out that the City of Austin and the Travis County budget are both being strained by the police.

If Austin police get the huge raises they are demanding, that will mean more cuts in library hours, parks, social services and other city functions next year, or higher city taxes. At the same time, Travis County is proposing to raise taxes to pay for increased incarceration caused by APD's optional arrests.

How much more do you want to pay for Chief Acevedo's unnecessary arrests? When the city pays police more, we lose library, parks and road money. When you pay more in taxes, you have less for groceries, gasoline, electricity and the rest of life's necessities. ... All so police can brag about high arrest numbers without solving even half of the violent crime in this town.

You can make a difference! Click here to contact Chief Acevedo - let him know it's time to stop wasting time and money with unnecessary arrests.