Department: District Courts
Department Head/Elected Official: Richard Woods
Regular or Supplemental RCA: Regular RCA
Type of Request: Grant
Project ID (if applicable): 100001000001300
Vendor/Entity Legal Name (if applicable):
MWDBE Contracted Goal (if applicable):
MWDBE Current Participation (if applicable):
Justification for 0% MWDBE Participation Goal: N/A - Goal not applicable to request
Request Summary (Agenda Caption):
title
Request by the District Courts for approval to accept from the Supreme Court of Texas grant funds in the amount of $1,716,318, with no required match, for the Court Backlog Reduction - ARPA Program, and to create four positions for the District Courts, three positions for Pretrial Services, and three positions for the District Clerk effective August 13, 2022.
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Background and Discussion:
Hurricane Harvey (August 2017) and the COVID-19 pandemic (March 2020 and ongoing) severely impacted the entire criminal justice system. As a result, the courts' criminal case backlog reached the highest levels in the history of Harris County. These positions are critical to the execution of the District Courts overall strategy to address criminal case backlog via adding staff needed for the Emergency Relief Dockets and staff needed to increase the volume and efficiency of processing warrants.
Expected Impact:
These positions will provide the Harris County justice agencies with some of the resources needed to implement new and enhance existing case backlog mitigation initiatives. The additional staff will be assigned to provide adequate support to the existing 3 Emergency Relief Dockets (ERD) and for two (2) new ERDs; and to help expedite the processing of warrants.
Alternative Options:
These initiatives tackle the problem of resolving the criminal backlog by adding resources needed across the difference justice agencies (i.e. DCA, DCO, PTS, and HCSO) to enhance the volume of work completed by the ERDs. Not investing these additi...
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