JPC Facility Overview

Optimizing Operational Efficiency

The Joint Processing Center (JPC) project is a partnership between Harris County and the City of Houston that consolidated all Houston Police Department (HPD) and Harris County Jail prisoner processing operations into one modern facility.  The JPC allowed the city to close its' jails and redeploy 100 HPD officers back to the streets.  The JPC allowed the HCSO to replace an old, undersized facility and modernize our outdated operating systems. 

With a basement, three full floors and a secure tunnel connection to other county facilities, the 246,000-square-foot JPC facility serves the nation’s third largest county jail system.  The JPC facilitates the efficient intake and release processing of approximately 800 detainees daily, and also includes 552 direct supervision housing beds.

PGAL Architects, working with the HCSO Project Team and other stakeholders, designed the JPC based on an open seating operational model, thus creating a more efficient, normative environment for all facility users. This operational model allows the Sheriff’s Office to proactively supervise all detainees, thus enhancing overall safety and security.  In addition, the open model expedites the flow of inbound and outbound detainees by reducing the need for officers to escort prisoners in/out of holding cells to perform the various processing functions.  Of course, the JPC does contain some holding cells for those detainees who are disruptive or need protective status.

Used in conjunction with enhanced health screening, the JPC includes a front-door Diversion workstation to provide officers with alternatives to incarceration, such as the Ed Emmett Mental Health Center, the Neuro-Psychiatric Center (NPC) and the City of Houston Sobering Center.  The Diversion station can also expedite eligible detainees to post bond or pay fines without entering the Harris County Jail housing areas.

Within the JPC, Re-entry Program areas were created to help reduce recidivism by providing discharge planning and other transitional services for outgoing prisoners, including housing, work programs, veterans’ services, faith-based programs, and other community treatment and services. 

To learn more, please click on the links below.  To see some JPC photos, please scroll down.