Concern mounts for Texas jails, prisons as COVID-19 cases increase again
Nov 11th, 2020 | Category: In The News“The pandemic has worsened everything about conditions in jails in Texas,” said Diana Claitor, the co-founder and communications director of the Texas Jail Project……Claitor has been worried since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic about problems outlined in a new study published by the University of Texas at Austin on Monday.
The KVUE Defenders also obtained a recent report about the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), which was published by the State’s Sunset Advisory Commission. It found five big issues:
- Jail standards are too vague, which creates risks for jails
- Inspection and enforcement processes don’t mitigate risk in jails
- TCJS lacks complaints data and investigation processes to make sure jails meet standards
- There is limited transparency and ability to improve jail operations
- The state still has a need for the TCJS
Claitor said the problems in that report are almost certainly linked to how much the virus is spreading in these facilities.
“We don’t have a strong commission that is educating jails about what needs to happen and requiring them to do that,” Claitor said. “So, yes, it’s very tied to the COVID situation.”
