Project Description

ARPA funds support the Harris County Sheriff’s Office (HCSO) for the TeleDeputy Unit to allow deputies to work overtime at the Emergency Dispatch Center (EDC)to respond to calls for services that do not require an on-scene law enforcement response. Response times of the HCSO have spiked in recent years due to increased calls for service, population growth, traffic saturation, and staffing levels. The HCSO has five patrol districts, serving around 1.9 million Harris County residents, and has four priorities of calls. The average response time for a Priority 1 call, including in-progress shootings, increased 28% from 2019 (13 minutes and 32 seconds) to (17 minutes and 18 seconds) by the program’s launch in September 2023.

The TeleDeputy Unit staffing plan allows up to 126 shifts per week and 504 workforce hours, and all Priority 3 and 4 calls for service that are eligible for TeleDeputy will be routed to the unit. During 2022, HCSO responded to 410,862 dispatched calls for service, with close to 60% of these calls being Priority 3 and 4, which generally do not require an on-scene law enforcement response. Managing these lower-priority calls for service remotely will allow patrol deputies to provide a faster response time to higher-priority 1 and 2 calls requiring an on-scene patrol investigation and should decrease response times to all priority levels of calls for service. The program is targeting a decrease of approximately 30% in response times to Priority 1 calls and 10-minute decreases in response times to Family Violence calls across all patrol districts. This reduction may impact homicide rates, as over 30% of cases investigated by the HCSO Homicide Unit in 2022 involved a Family Violence component. The HCSO will track response times to calls for service, the total number of calls and specific call types managed by the TeleDeputy Unit, and the number of reports and supplements generated.