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Agency record · transport & detention
A deputy is the ambulance, the escort and the driver. Three years of records show how far that goes.
The Sheriff's Office gave us three fiscal years: mental health evaluations, emergency detentions, transport hours and miles, and jail bookings where mental health was a factor. This is the dataset in full — including the checks it does not pass.
2,619
Deputy hours spent on psychiatric transport across three fiscal years.
134,372
Miles driven to reach psychiatric beds that do not exist in this county.
821
Jail bookings in which mental health was identified as a factor.
268
Suicide watches or behavioral crisis incidents inside the jail.
Figure S1 · Three years
Two measures climb. One does not — and that is the first thing worth noticing.
Evaluations and transport hours rise in every year. Miles do not: they spike in FY2024 and fall back. Two of these three lines tell a story about need. The third tells a story about the data — see the next figure.
Mental health evaluations
Deputy hours on transports
Transport miles
See this figure as a table
| Measure | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Mental health evaluations | 135 | 265 | 316 | 716 |
| Deputy hours on transports | 380 | 997 | 1,242 | 2,619 |
| Transport miles | 16,964 | 75,896 | 41,512 | 134,372 |
Source: Starr County Sheriff's Office, provided to Starr County Behavioral Health Center.
Figure S2 · Integrity check
Divide the miles by the hours and FY2024 says deputies drove at 76 mph — for 997 hours.
This is the check we ran on our own dataset before publishing it. Every psychiatric transport is a round trip on and off U.S. 83, with loading, waiting and handoff time inside those hours. An average of 33 to 45 mph is what that looks like. 76 mph is not a driving speed; it is a sign that one of the two FY2024 fields is wrong.
See this figure as a table
| Miles | Hours | Implied average speed | |
|---|---|---|---|
| FY2023 | 16,964 | 380 | 44.6 mph |
| FY2024 | 75,896 | 997 | 76.1 mph |
| FY2025 | 41,512 | 1,242 | 33.4 mph |
Calculated by SCBHC: reported transport miles ÷ reported deputy hours, per fiscal year. 16,964 ÷ 380 = 44.6. 75,896 ÷ 997 = 76.1. 41,512 ÷ 1,242 = 33.4. We have asked the Sheriff's Office to help us identify which FY2024 field is off. Until that is resolved, every mileage-derived figure on this site is flagged.
Figure S3 · The drive
The nearest bed is an hour away. When it is full, the drive keeps going.
The one measured number here is the 98-mile average round trip. Everything to the right of it is schematic — it shows the order of the destinations a deputy is sent to when the near beds are full, not measured distance.
Source: 98-mile average round trip from the Starr County Sheriff's Office dataset. Destinations as published on The Need. Diagram is schematic; drive times are descriptive, not measured by SCBHC.
Figure S4 · The jail
Fifty jail beds, occupied every day of the year.
259 bookings in FY2025 where mental health was a factor, at a reported average stay of 71 days, is 18,389 bed-days. Spread across a year that is the equivalent of fifty beds full, every night, holding people whose underlying need was treatment.
See this figure as a table
| Measure | FY2023 | FY2024 | FY2025 | Total |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Bookings, mental health a factor | 343 | 219 | 259 | 821 |
| Inmates flagged | 278 | 185 | 205 | 668 |
| Average length of stay (days) | 89 | 58 | 71 | — |
| On psychotropic medication | 259 | 171 | 187 | 617 |
| Suicide watches / crisis incidents | 28 | 185 | 55 | 268 |
Calculated by SCBHC from Sheriff's Office figures: 259 bookings × 71-day reported average length of stay. This assumes every such booking stayed the average, which is why it is an order of magnitude and not an audit. It excludes psychotropic medication for 617 inmates, screening, and the staffing cost of 268 suicide watches.
Figure S5 · Interactive
At the rate of the last three years, psychiatric transport consumes a whole deputy.
Deputy hours went 380 → 997 → 1,242, an average increase of 431 hours a year. Carried forward at that rate, transport alone passes 2,080 hours — one full-time deputy position — inside two more years.
Read this as a direction, not a forecast. Three points is a short series, and the middle one is the year that fails the integrity check above. We publish it because every measured trend in this dataset points the same way, not because two more data points would not change it.
Calculated by SCBHC. Linear projection from the three reported years: average annual increase of 431 hours, applied forward. No growth rate is claimed beyond what those three points imply.
What we're unsure of
Four things in this dataset we cannot yet explain.
All four are being reconciled with the Sheriff's Office. We publish them so a reviewer does not have to find them.
Likely error FY2024 miles do not reconcile with FY2024 hours
75,896 miles in 997 hours implies 76 mph sustained. The comparable figures are 45 mph in FY2023 and 33 mph in FY2025. One of the two FY2024 fields is very likely wrong — see Figure S2.
Under review Mileage does not reconcile with emergency detentions in any year
At a 98-mile average round trip, the reported mileage implies roughly 173, 774 and 424 transports against 47, 121 and 33 reported emergency detentions. The likely explanation is that most transports are not emergency detentions — plausible, but it should be stated rather than left for a reader to work out.
Under review Emergency detentions swing from 47 to 121 to 33
That is not a credible reflection of community need across three years. The counting method most likely changed, and we need to know when and how before this row can carry weight.
Likely error FY2024 suicide watches equal FY2024 flagged inmates exactly
Both are 185. Two independent measures landing on an identical number is very likely a transcription error in one of the two fields.
Prepared by
Johnny Gonzalez, MBA
Co-Founder & Organizer, Starr County Behavioral Health Center USA, RetiredWhile you have been reading
$0.00
This is the transport and detention line alone — deputy time, vehicle operation and jail housing, at the midpoint assumption. Every hour of it is an hour a deputy is not in Starr County, and a person in crisis is further from home.