Harris County Jail Crisis in Houston Leads to Dozens of Deaths
The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has repeatedly issued notices of non-compliance against the jail, which has struggled to recover from a massive backlog of people detained on felony charges.
Landwebs
On Thursday, Unicorn Riot released an investigative report by Arturo Dominguez documenting the crisis-level conditions at the Harris County Jail in Houston, Texas, the third-largest jail in the U.S. Overcrowding, medical crises and a lack of mental health services have contributed to the deaths of dozens of detainees, Dominguez reports. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has repeatedly issued notices of non-compliance against the jail, which has struggled to recover from a massive backlog of people detained on felony charges.
Despite the county’s recent contract to move over 600 people to a jail facility in West Texas, advocates and experts told Dominguez that the high number of in-custody deaths is not being adequately addressed. In January, the Chief of Detention for the Sheriff’s Office resigned, citing staffing issues and a “large felony case backlog which led to overcrowding and outsourcing.”
