Travis County commissioners voted unanimously on Tuesday to pause a years-old plan to build a separate women's jail for at least 12 months, after listening to over a hundred people urge them not to move forward with construction.
Instead of voting on a contract with an architecture firm that was on the agenda, commissioners went with newly elected County Judge Andy Brown's plan to direct staff to update the master plan for jail facilities with this decade's data and goals.
"We have a jail with way more capacity than we need right now," Brown said Tuesday. "We have Building 12, which is the newest building at the jail. It is in good condition, based on every report I've seen. It has a capacity of over 1,300 people. It is only, right now, filled to the low seven hundreds. That would fit every single woman in the jail."