Surprise, surprise. The Harris County Jail (HCJ) failed a state safety inspection – again.
The facility, which has made national news for all the wrong reasons, continues to struggle with persistent overcrowding and understaffing.
“The inspection team reported that we do not have enough staff for the number of people currently held inside our jail facility.The inspection team also reported that although our detention officers have a 99%-plus success rate for completing their face-to-face visual contact rounds, we still do not meet the standard.”
jason spencer
Nearly two years ago, since September 2022 to be exact, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards classified HJC as noncompliant with the state’s minimum jail standards after four previous inspections.
Nearly three weeks ago TCJS engaged in its fifth HCJ inspection. Here are the three safety violations they found:
- The jail is required to maintain a state-mandated staffing ratio of one detention officer for every 48 people in the facility. After reviewing staffing rosters, inspectors determined that staffing did not meet the minimum requirement;
- Detention officers are expected to conduct face-to-face observations every 30 and 60 minutes. They failed to consistently conduct these observations at least 1,400 times in January;
- Out of 173 detainees going to court in the 30 days prior to the inspection, a total of 32 of them housed within the jail’s specialized units did not receive prescribed medications.
Medical neglect, including failing to allow detainees access to prescribed medicine, was just one of several previous HCJ safety violations. HCJ was also dinged with the violation of keeping people in holding cells for an excess of 48 hours, which is prohibited by state law.
Over the past two years HCJ was home to a record number of detainee deaths, leading to multiple lawsuits from survivors. HCJ was also investigated by the U.S. Department of Justice for these violations.
The Harris County Sheriff’s Office contends that many of the previous violations have since been resolved, yet acknowledges that persistent understaffing has resulted in an inability to properly observe and care for those held in the overcrowded facility.
“The inspection team reported that we do not have enough staff for the number of people currently held inside our jail facility,” said Jason Spencer, chief of staff at the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, told Houston Public Media. “The inspection team also reported that although our detention officers have a 99%-plus success rate for completing their face-to-face visual contact rounds, we still do not meet the standard.”
“While we have made improvements in both of these areas, we have not yet hit the mark,” he added.
“A multi-pronged effort to improve conditions”
Spencer contends county officials have taken a “multi-pronged” approach to improving conditions in the jail, as reported by the Defender in January – an article that revealed not much had actually changed.
In September 2023, officials approved a 12% salary increase for detention officers hoping the boost would improve the retention and recruitment of more jailers. However, a recent HCJ presentation to the Harris County Commissioners Court that investment wasn’t enough to fill the sheriff’s office’s current reported 190 detention officer vacancies.
Officials have also invested millions into several multi-million-dollar contracts to outsource pre-trial detainees to four private facilities outside of Harris County. As of Tuesday, 9,218 people were in the county’s custody, but 1,071 of those people were being outsourced to private facilities in Louisiana, northwest Texas, Beaumont, and Mississippi, according to the Harris County’s jail dashboard.
Jail reform advocates — like Krishnaveni Gundu, the executive director of Texas Jail Project — say Harris County’s outsourcing is an unsustainable solution that places even more strain on the county’s already backed-up court system.
“None of those solutions are actually helping with reducing the jail population that would make things safe in the jail for both the staff and the people that are sitting in cages,” Gundu said.
Regardless, according to Spencer, “the [TCJS] inspectors encouraged Harris County to continue exploring opportunities for outsourcing.”
