State officials plan to further reduce the Harris County Jail's bed capacity as the facility continues to struggle under the weight of persistent understaffing.
The decision came during a meeting with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards on Thursday, where county officials were once again questioned about the jail’s continued violation of statewide safety standards. Among the plethora of previous violations, the jail has struggled to maintain the state-mandated staffing ratio of one detention officer for every 48 prisoners held in the jail.
Brandon Wood, the executive director of the commission, has previously told Houston Public Media that he believed understaffing was the catalyst for the jail’s safety violations. During Thursday’s meeting, Wood announced that due to the unceasing staffing shortage, the Harris County Jail’s total bed capacity would be limited “to the amount of available staff.”
As of now, it’s unclear what this limitation will look like. Wood said he’d follow up with county officials to discuss the specifics at a later time.
Last year, the commission began chipping away at the facility's variance beds, which are short-term beds that were granted by the state years ago in order to temporarily increase the facility's approved capacity. This reduced the jail’s approved capacity by nearly 600 beds.
Since September 2022, the Harris County Jail has been noncompliant with Texas’ minimum jail standards after repeatedly failing multiple state inspections. The facility’s most recent violation was found on April 10, which found that prisoners were being deprived of clothing or bedding “without disciplinary due process.”
Phillip Bosquez, an assistant chief at the Harris County Sheriff's Office who oversees the county jail, told commissioners on Thursday that the jail’s previous violations — besides the perpetual staffing deficit — have all been corrected. According to Bosquez, 108 detention officers have been hired within the last 90 days, adding to the more than 1,700 jailers currently working within the facility.
Bosquez added that the retention rate among detention officers has increased by more than 30% in the last six months, which the chief attributed to a 12% salary increase approved by county officials last year. However, Bosquez says they still have 192 job vacancies lingering in the jail.
“There’s still sometimes that officers are pulled in different areas,” Bosquez said. “I think that staffing is an issue for every jail in the state of Texas.”
Bosquez added that the average length of stay in the jail has decreased from nearly 200 days to around 185 days, which is still substantially higher than the statewide average of around 60 days.
During the meeting, Bosquez also questioned the commission’s auditing standards, specifically when it comes to observational rounds. State law requires detention officers to check on prisoners once per hour, and once every half hour for those “known to be assaultive, potentially suicidal, mentally ill, or who have demonstrated bizarre behavior are confined.”
According to Bosquez, Harris County has been repeatedly dinged for missing these observational rounds, despite hitting about 99.8% of them on time last month. Bosquez added that a majority of the late rounds were by less than three minutes.
In response, Wood said Harris County is being examined with a closer eye because of the jail’s consistent non-compliance. Wood added that they wanted to ensure that the jail was sufficiently staffed before “looking at auditing standards and the number of missed checks.”
The state’s influence on Harris County’s jail population
According to Bosquez, the Harris County Jail was holding about 195 people on technical parole violators — those who are out of state prison, but violate their parole without picking up new charges. While they’re under the purview of the state, county jails are responsible for holding these people as their case is sorted out.
Additionally, Bosquez said the jail was holding about 553 people who’ve already been convicted and were waiting to be transferred to a state facility. According to state law, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) has 45 days to pick up convicted prisoners from county jails. On average, according to Bosquez, it’s taking the state about 27 days to pick up prisoners from Harris County.
According to county officials across the state, along with administrators with the TDCJ, that number has been steadily increasing across the state over the last year. This has put Harris County in a tough spot, according to Jason Spencer, chief of staff at the sheriff’s office.
“Harris County and several other counties in Texas would be able to meet our staffing standards if everyone who was ready to be sent off to a state prison could get picked up tomorrow,” he said.
“No one was there to help him”
In an effort to curb the effects of understaffing, on top of a ballooning jail population, Harris County officials are paying about $50 million in taxpayer dollars to send more than a thousand prisoners to private facilities outside of the region — about 16% of the total number of incarcerated people in Harris County’s custody, according to Bosquez.
Two of these facilities are located outside of Texas — the LaSalle Correctional Facility in Louisiana and CoreCivic's Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi — and the oversight is questionable at both of these private prisons.
The county's contract with LaSalle states that the facility must comply with "Louisiana's best practices," even though the private facility isn’t overseen by the state.
Jaleen Anderson, 29, was sent from Harris County to LaSalle in March, where he suffered from six seizures, according to his mother, Sarah Knight, who spoke to the commission on Thursday.
Her son died while in custody earlier this month, hundreds of miles away from his family. She says she hasn’t been given any information as to what exactly happened to her son. According to Spencer, answers may not be available for a few more months as both the Harris County Sheriff’s Office and LaSalle conduct their own investigations.
Until then, Knight plans to continue her push for accountability.
“No one was there to help him. His mother and father could not hold his hand,” Knight said through tear-streaked cheeks. “I need peace.”