http://www.houstonpress.com/2009-11-19/news/jail-misery/
By Randall Patterson
Published on November 17, 2009 at 1:53pm

Monte Killian says he asked for his medication again and again for days to no avail.Read more

Read almost any part of this report and then please tell me how Harris County allowed things to get this bad. They have 9,400 people in this place and scores are dying from maltreatment and neglect, not to mention the chokeholds and hogtying. And if you want to see a first person account, read Sarah's in our Inmate Stories section: "Harris County Jail: Hell on Earth, 2009."
When is the Department of Justice going to step up and file suit on Harris County?Read more

Sarah was sentenced to 180 days at the Harris County Jail on a misdemeanor from Family Court. There are two jails in Harris County: Big Baker and Little Baker. Sarah spent time in both and eventually served a total of three months. Big Baker is the housing for inmates who are considered High Risk. She thinks that the maximum number of inmates allowed by the state is 9,300, but they crowd in up to 12,000 at a time. Little Baker is reserved for those who are seen as posing little or no risk.Read more

At the Taylor County Jail in Abilene, some inmates say they've been strapped to chairs and left outside all day in the sun or rain.

Others say guards sometimes sprayed pepper spray directly into their eyes. Another staffer allegedly asked a mentally ill inmate: "Why don't you do something positive and hang yourself?"

The allegations, some among 200 pages of complaints filed with a state agency, are alarming even in a state with a "hang 'em high" mentality, according to the Texas Jail Project. The group rallied Wednesday in Abilene to decry inmate mistreatment, saying reform is still needed nearly 2 years after the U.S. Justice Department lambasted the Dallas County Jail for serious lapses resulting in deaths.Read more

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas and Democratic election challenger Adrian Garcia clashed Thursday over inmate deaths in the county jail, with the Republican incumbent saying many accused criminals arrive there with life-threatening illnesses.

A few hours before that initial showdown between Thomas and Garcia, the candidates for district attorney continued their series of forums on other segments of the county's criminal justice system.

The U.S. Justice Department is investigating problems at the jail, the full staffing of which requires overtime pay to deputies in Thomas' agency. The problems include the deaths of about 140 inmates since 2001.Read more

For more than two years, news stories by Chronicle reporters have raised troubling questions concerning the mortality rate among prisoners held at the Harris County Jail. At least 138 deaths occurred between 2001 and the end of 2007. In January, three more county jail inmates died.

Now that the Department of Justice's civil rights division has opened an investigation, perhaps Houstonians will get some much-needed answers. Although a government spokesman did not explain the reason for opening the probe, it is likely that the prisoner deaths and numerous complaints of jail overcrowding, staff shortages and unsanitary conditions sparked it. The aim of the probe is to determine whether jail conditions systemically violate inmates' constitutional rights.Read more

One in three Texas jails have failed state inspections so far this year, and more than a fourth, including Harris County's, failed last year, an Associated Press review of Texas Commission on Jail Standards records found.

When inspected, the jails ranged in population from seven inmates to more than 9,000, and infractions ranged from mold to structural problems to inadequate staffing, Commission director Adan Munoz said. Many are crumbling with age and lack adequate space for female inmates.

"Most of the jails that we're currently inspecting are pretty much at the minimum anywhere from 10 to 15 years old or older, which starts to create infrastructure problems," he said. "Equate it to a home, except being used as a much larger volume. The facility begins to get worn down."Read more