Legacy Collective for Texas Civil Rights Project: Criminal Injustice Reform

TCRP’s Criminal Injustice Reform Program (CIR) strives to remedy the injustices of Texas's criminal legal system for people suffering inside and outside of jails and prisons. To dismantle the drivers of mass incarceration and mass entanglement with the criminal system, TCRP challenges the entire pipeline of disparate criminalization: unfair policing, prosecution and judicial process, probation and parole, and for-profit practices. Their approach to law, order, public safety and punishment is grounded in civil rights and intersectionality. Together with TCRP's partners, they hold stakeholders accountable to Texas communities in and out of the courtroom. Recent and current initiatives include litigation to reform the state's use of solitary confinement, challenging the racially disparate enforcement of juvenile curfew ordinances, and advocating and litigating for bail reform.

Their CIR Program's legal and advocacy support recently contributed to the finalization of a historic misdemeanor bail reform agreement for Harris County (which encompasses the City of Houston), setting in place new protections for people accused of minor offenses in the country’s third largest criminal legal system. TCRP, alongside their coalition partners, contributed to a 2019 court victory that resulted in most misdemeanor arrestees automatically qualifying for release without paying cash bail, reversing the years-long practice of detaining 40% of them throughout the duration of their cases simply because they were poor.

Now, TCRP is engaging in similar litigation and advocacy to reform Harris county’s felony bail system, which has devastating consequences for impoverished arrestees and their families, and frequently coerces guilty pleas. They aim to ensure that felony arrestees are afforded their due Constitutional protection against wrongful deprivation of the right to bodily liberty—the most important right protected by the Constitution, other than the right to life itself. This reform project will impact the nearly 30,000 people—who are disproportionately Black and brown, and enduring financial hardship—locked up pre-trial on felony charges each year in the county, as well as their loved ones who also endure the damaging consequences.

Initiative Impact

Recent Impacts include:

• 85% of the roughly 50,000 individuals charged with misdemeanors in Harris County annually now qualify for pre-trial release without paying cash bail.

• -$450 - Decrease in fines from $500 to $50 for juveniles cited for nighttime curfew violations in Houston and Dallas. The cities also eliminated daytime juvenile curfew ordinances.

• 198 individuals surveyed for our investigation into the State’s torturous use of solitary confinement.