The San Marcos Police Department reported a 70% increase in citations and a 23% decrease in crime from 2019 after qualifying 2020 as an “odd year” due to COVID-19.
At the San Marcos City Council meeting Tuesday night, Interim Chief Bob Klett provided the first quarterly report to the council as required by the Cite and Release Ordinance, which was approved April 7 as the first of its kind in Texas.
The new civil law directs SMPD to issue citations for low-level nonviolent offenses like theft of service less than $375, theft of property less than $375, criminal mischief less than $375, graffiti less than $375, possession of marijuana less than 4 oz., Class C misdemeanors excluding public intoxication, assault and family violence, and driving while license invalid.
The policy is based on a state law passed in 2007 which gives officers discretion to issue citations instead of arrest for certain these low-level non-violent crimes, as well as some Class A and B misdemeanors. City council voted to limit the list of eligible offenses outlined by the state for time being.
Cite and release has been used increasingly in San Marcos since 2017, with a 70% uptick in 2020, the year the policy was passed as an ordinance. Cite and release was used 11 times in 2017, 22 times in 2018, 30 times in 2019 and has so far been used 51 times in 2020.
“We were taking these steps to protect ourselves and the public and to decrease the amounts of arrests ... the ordinance will continue past the covid period. The officers are professionals and they are going to do what they are asked to do,” Klett said. “The numbers are a combination of the ordinance and covid. I’m sure the ordinance has had some effect.”
The “odd” part potentially affecting the 2020 statistics is that SMPD tried to reduce contact with the public to attempt to stop the spread of COVID-19. SMPD has responded to roughly 16.65% less calls in 2020 compared to the previous two years — roughly 40,000 calls between Jan. 1-Aug. 10 in 2020 to 48,000 calls in the same time period in 2018 and 2019. There were around 10,000 traffic stops completed between January and August of 2018 and 2019, and only 4,800 so far in 2020, a 52.05% decrease.
Klett revealed that while index crime on a whole went down 23% from 2019, robbery and burglary, different from theft, went up in 2020, further exemplifying the unordinary nature of the year, although robbery and burglary are not citation eligible offenses.
Councilmember Maxfield Baker recalled community concerns that theft would increase with cite and release and pointed out that theft has actually gone down and that robbery and burglary cases would be arrested, not cited and released.
There were also concerns that cite and release would reduce the number of street diversions happening, an example of which would be when an officer dismisses someone for a minor non-violent offense with a warning.
“I’m sure some officers are a little bit chilled on street diversion because of the fears we talked about before, but obviously some officers are still doing it,” said Klett. “We talk about reasonableness a lot and doing what is reasonable in all of our contacts, that is, being impartial, doing what they think is best on individual contacts. Where they have those abilities to make those decisions, they are making them.”
There were 153 street diversions in quarter 1, prior to cite and release passing as an ordinance, 13 in quarter 2 when there was much less traffic after stay-at-home orders began and 17 in quarter 3 as residents are beginning to come back outside and students return to town.
The report covered quarter 2 after cite and release passed as an ordinance from May 31 to June 30. There were 91 arrests made in that time period that did not qualify for cite and release, and 12 citation eligible offenses. Of the 12, seven were given citations and released, and there were five instances where a citation was disqualified either because the individual did not live in Hays County or they had another offense that was not eligible for citation.
Of the 12 citation eligible offenses were four instances of criminal mischief, three driving while license invalid, two thefts, one possession of marijuana, one fighting and one DUI.
In the 18-24 age range of citation eligible offenses, one black male received a citation, one Hispanic female was arrested, two white males were arrested and one black female was arrested.
In the 25 to 34 age range one black male, one white male and two Hispanic males were issued citations.
In the 35 to 44 age range, one black female and white female received a citation. One Hispanic male was arrested.
Three of the instances were contacted because they violated the law, three were moving traffic violations like speeding or running a stop sign and six instances were called in by residents.
The data is available online at SMPD’s cite and release dashboard at https://cosm.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/6fc4451055984d1f9f31ea7fb3b74290
