OFFICE BURDENED BY RISE IN FEDERAL CASES

U.S. Marshals Service: Dealing With Insufficient Resources

A problem of "crisis" proportions has hit El Paso with the explosion in the
federal prisoner population and the insufficient resources of the men and
women in charge of their care, federal officials said.

"We are waving a white flag that we have to have help or we will no longer
be able to do our duties safely," said Gary M. Brown, assistant chief
deputy U.S. marshal for the Western District of Texas.

The deputy-to-prisoner ratio in El Paso, 1 to 78, is one of the highest in
the country, and the increasing number of defendants has created
"logistical nightmares," Brown said.

"If one person is holding 20 people, it's very dangerous," said Yvette Pena
Lopes, spokeswoman for U.S. Rep. Silvestre Reyes, D-Texas.

The El Paso division of the U.S. Marshals Service has been burdened by the
rise in federal criminal cases on the border during the past six years.

The Marshals Service, an agency of the Department of Justice, is in charge
of judicial and witness security, fugitive investigation and apprehension,
prisoner custody and transportation.

Since 1994, the El Paso division has experienced more than a fourfold
increase in the number of federal criminal cases filed. In 1994, 379
federal criminal cases were filed in the El Paso division of the Western
District of Texas. As of Nov. 29, 1,962 criminal cases had been filed, and
the count is expected to exceed 2,000 by the end of the next week.

The marshals not only handle the people arrested but also issue warrants
and conduct fugitive searches, which have increased because of the rise in
federal criminal cases, Brown said.

The El Paso division has more prisoners -- 1,175 -- than any other division
in the Western District of Texas, which extends from El Paso to Waco. An
average of 3,300 federal prisoners were in custody of the U.S. marshals in
the Western District of Texas this year at any time.

Most criminal cases filed involved drugs or undocumented immigrants, and
narcotics accounted for 65 to 70 percent of the cases, said Richard C.
Delgado, deputy in charge of the U.S. clerk's office in El Paso.

"El Paso is a transportation hub for drugs, drug smugglers and alien
smugglers," Brown said.

While resources, such as agents and equipment, to the U.S. Border, INS and
DEA have grown with the rise in cases, the U.S. Marshals Service has not
had relief.

Since 1995, the number of U.S. marshals for the Western District of Texas
has remained under 50 deputies, while the U.S. Border Patrol has increased
by more than 600 agents to almost 2,000 this year.

"It really poses a danger to the officers and to their effectiveness on the
job," said Lopes.

The national deputy-to-federal-prisoner ratio is 1-to-12, compared with the
1-to-78 ratio in El Paso, according to Department of Justice records.

"That is a very high ratio of prisoners to deputies compared to other
offices," Brown said.

Because El Paso lacks the facilities to house all the pretrial inmates,
they are sent as far as Odessa -- 300 miles east -- until their day in
court. More than 700 federal prisoners are housed at the El Paso County
Jail, according to the Department of Justice, which reimburses the county
$1.2 million a month for housing pretrial federal prisoners in the jail,
Brown said. Pretrial prisoners are not housed at La Tuna federal prison,
outside of Anthony, Texas, because they cannot be mixed with federal convicts.

There is not enough room at the county jail to house federal prisoners,
authorities said.

El Paso's U.S. Federal Courthouse, built in 1935, lacks enough space to
hold pretrial prisoners and is not up to safety standards. Elevators, used
by the public, judges and prisoners, are not large enough to quickly
transport the more than 160 prisoners who enter the courthouse every day.

"It is too small, and I cannot make it meet U.S. Marshal Service security
requirements," Brown said.

Despite the danger posed to the deputies and the public with the rise in
the prisoner population, officers have been fairly safe so far, Brown said.

"We have not seen a rise in assaults," he said. "There have only been a
couple in the last five years."

The lack of funds and other resources for border towns has attracted the
attention of scholars.

"With all the increases in Border Patrol and INS agents, the feds forgot to
put resources into the courts," said Martha Smithey, a sociology professor
at the University of Texas at El Paso.

Smithey is studying the effects of drug-related offenses on the U.S. courts
and the U.S.-Mexico border. She believes the study will show that the
farther from the border, the lower the caseload -- but the more resources
allocated to the agencies.

Preliminary results of the study will be available next spring.

"I believe it is going to show the tremendous impact on the border
community that is of crisis proportions," Smithey said.

She hopes the study, sponsored by UTEP's Center for Law and Border Studies,
will be used to gain more resources for lagging border agencies.

Congress, addressing the problem in its final spending bill recently,
included $572 million for the U.S. Marshals Service for fiscal year 2001 --
$32 million more than last fiscal year -- Lopes said. The spending bill
needs only President Clinton's signature to become law.

"We're not sure it is enough for what they need," Lopes said.

Congressman Reyes had asked for an additional $94 million for the U.S.
Marshals Service from the Subcommittee on Commerce, Justice, State and
Judiciary Committee on Appropriations.

In a Dec. 13 letter to the committee, Reyes expressed his concern that the
U.S. marshals have not received increases in personnel and facilities since
1994.

Reyes wrote, "Something must be done to assist the U.S. Marshals Service
... so they can provide the type of law enforcement support necessary and
do so in a safe manner."

More information: www.usdoj.gov/marshals