State jail offenders are required to work to comply with the program. The local probation departments are encouraged to get actively involved in state jail programs and to provide an essential link between the state jail and the community. That process has unfortunately moved fairly slowly in many parts of Texas, but more and more local jurisdictions seem to be getting involved. We must remember that this is an entirely new system that was attached to our long-established procedures. Change in any form is always hard to adjust to.
Radical change is even more difficult.
In September 1997, there were 6,222 offenders actually confined in state jails. The forecast is that five years from now, in August of 2002, there will be only 11,605 defendants in our state jails. Trial officials are clearly not utilizing the confinement capacity of the state jail system, which is a marked departure from what was expected when the concept was crafted by the Legislature. Prison capacity has thus been effectively increased. The anticipated large number of state jail defendants just has not materialized.