Harris County Indigent Defense Dashboard

When people accused of crimes cannot afford an attorney, the court appoints one for them—a process known as indigent defense.

The Harris County public defender's office is a relatively new organization, and they can only serve a fraction of the defendants who need it. The remaining cases have defense attorneys who are appointed by the judge. While this system is meant to ensure fair representation, research shows that campaign donations often influence how judges assign cases.

On national public defense day, we debuted the Harris County Indigent Defense Dashboard. This interactive tool uses information from the Texas Ethics Commission and Harris County District Courts (HCDC) to provide a judge-level view of how judicial campaign donations are related to case assignments and outcomes.

View a special webinar where we shared new research on the topic and unveiled the Harris County Indigent Defense Dashboard. This interactive tool exposes the relationship between judicial campaign donations, case assignments, and outcomes.

Watch the Free Webinar

The webinar recording, as well as a summary of findings and a link to the dashboard, are available here: https://www.januaryadvisors.com/how-campaign-donations-affect-indigent-defense-in-harris-county/

The webinar includes:

• Rodney Ellis, Harris County Commissioner Precinct 1, who inspired the project
• Dr. Karen Johnson, Texas Center for Justice and Equity
• Ammar Khalid, The Urban Institute
• A dashboard overview from Dr. David McClendon, January Advisors

Hosted by Jeff Reichman of January Advisors. 

Additional reading: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/06/01/us/campaign-finance-criminal-justice-judges.html

Bexar County Probation Dashboard

TCJE launched our Bexar County probation dashboard in 2023. The dashboard, created with January Advisors, allows you to examine probation implications for various charges over a wide date range (2010-2022), further broken down by misdemeanor or felony. After choosing a charge, you will get an overall picture of the number of people assigned to probation, the number who have completed it, their average probation duration, and revocations. You can further examine the charge by County Commissioner precinct or City Council district – and you can also see the charge broken down by race, gender, and age, as well as the population’s demographics compared to Bexar County as a whole (income, owner vs. renter, school level, health insurance coverage).

Among the key takeaways:

• From 2010 to 2022, over 46,000 people were assigned to probation in Bexar County.
• While white people are assigned to probation at higher rates than other racial/ethnic groups in Bexar County, Black and people of color, on average, serve longer probation sentences than their white counterparts.
• When ranked with 15 of the largest probation populations in Texas, Bexar County has the second highest revocation rate – surpassing other large urban counties like Harris, Dallas, and Travis. Over half (55 percent) of the revocations were for technical reasons.

Harris County Data Dashboard

Our Harris County data dashboard, which we launched in 2018, puts data on disparities in Harris County’s justice system right at your fingertips to hold leaders accountable. The dashboard, created with January Advisors and with support from Microsoft Cities Team, overlays data from more than 800,000 criminal court cases with demographic information to create a comprehensive view of case outcomes in Houston – including the degree to which arrests are skewed in communities of color, how bail amounts differ, and individual judges’ sentencing decisions.

Austin-area Drug Enforcement Visualization

INTERACTIVE DATA VISUALIZATION ON THE DRUG WAR: In October 2021, TCJE continued our work with Austin-area advocates to draw attention to the local war on drugs. We partnered with January Advisors to create a scrolling data visualization that shows how police saturation is tied to social vulnerability – like fewer jobs or social supports, lower education levels, and more renters – in certain Austin-area neighborhoods where drug possession arrests are most likely.

We accompanied the launch of this new storyboard with a webinar – hosted by TCJE's Alycia Castillo, with panelists Cate Graziani (Texas Harm Reduction Alliance), David Johnson (Grassroots Leadership), and David McClendon (January Advisors) – as well as a blog post  from TCJE's Sarah Reyes, a contributor to this data project who shares what she learned about her own neighborhood, as well as what to consider when going to the polls.