Houston Landing: Finally in compliance: Harris County Jail passes state inspection for first time in 2 years

For the first time in nearly two years, the Harris County Jail is in compliance with Texas’ minimum safety standards, a significant achievement for the long-troubled facility. 

The Harris County Jail had been considered out of compliance with Texas’ minimum safety standards since September 2022, when an inspection found dozens of incarcerated people waiting to be processed in holding cells for more than 48 hours, a violation of state law. Follow-up inspections identified staffing shortages, failures to provide medical care and lax monitoring of a person who died in the jail.

To address these problems, the Harris County Sheriff’s Office hired dozens of people and sent hundreds of people held in jail while awaiting trial from the overcrowded downtown facility to other jails. The recent actions by the sheriff’s office have come at a significant cost to taxpayers, however, including up to $50 million to send people to jails run by other agencies.

While they gave the Harris County Jail a passing grade, state inspectors provided “technical assistance” on four fronts.

Krish Gundu, executive director of the Texas Jail Project, a nonprofit that advocates for people in county jails, said in a statement that she found the timing of the compliance certificate and the recent custodial deaths as ironic.