[420 Girl]

A group of local advocates are calling for Austin police to adopt a nearly year-old piece of state legislation that gives officers the option of issuing field-release citations, which do not involve taking the person to jail, instead of booking offenders for minor crimes.

Austin Public Safety Solutions spoke in favor Tuesday of the House bill, which was passed in June 2007 and took effect last September. The bill allows police officers to issue field-release citations for a laundry list of misdemeanors including driving without a valid driver's license, possessing up to four ounces of marijuana, and committing criminal mischief, graffiti and theft amounting to less than $500.

The citation requires offenders to appear in court, but does not require the officer to book offenders. Before the bill took effect, officers could only issue field-release citations for Class C misdemeanors, such as public intoxication and traffic tickets, and the Travis County Sheriff's office was one group that lobbied for more crimes to be added to the list, said office spokesman Roger Wade.

"The Travis County Sheriff's office was instrumental in getting the bill passed," Wade said. "The biggest benefit - and one of the reasons we lobbied for it - is it keeps the deputies out on the street."

The optional adoption of the bill by police departments would require Williamson, Hays and Travis county courts to enact a similar policy that would allow Austin police officers to have the option of issuing field-release citations in all three counties, which are within their jurisdiction. Police department Lt. Donald Baker said he hopes a policy would be adopted after representatives from the three counties meet in September.

"We want the policy to be used universally across the city for the officers," Baker said, adding that the department's tri-county jurisdiction has made it difficult to implement the policy.

Wade said the Travis County Sheriff's Office encourages its deputies to use the citation option whenever they can and said more than 100 field-release citations have been issued since the beginning of the year.

The public safety group, led by the president of the Central Texas chapter of the American Civil Liberties Union, Debbie Russell, presented a report to the Austin Police Department Tuesday. The report cited the number and cost of arrests for 2007, information released by the police department through an open records request.

Russell said the city's budget plan released earlier this week will allot more money to the police department by increasing trash fees and closing libraries earlier. Field-release citations would save enough money to make these measures unnecessary, she said.

Russell said the city could save $5.4 million a year, a conservative figure because it does not include incarceration costs.

Background:Marijuana Ticket Law Only Catching On Near Austin

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