Travis County Reform Work

Overview

Travis County (Austin) is the state’s fifth-largest driver of people into state prison and home of the state’s fifth-largest county jail population. Drug possession is a large driver of local incarceration, with felony drug possession cases increasing by 34% from 2014 to 2019. The local treatment infrastructure has been insufficient to address the high need for services.

While TCJE does not have a staff person dedicated exclusively to working in Travis County, our Austin-based staff have been participating in local advocacy since 2016. Our work, in strong partnership with other advocates on the ground, has been incrementally paving the way for pre-arrest and pretrial reforms that will improve people’s access to treatment and programming, reduce the number of people entering incarceration, and make Travis County safer.

The Texas Criminal Justice Coalition is now the Texas Center for Justice and Equity! Learn More