Several posts from last year (here, here and here) addressed one of the constants of my 27-year legal career in Houston — the chronically abysmal condition of the Harris County Jail. With this article, the Chronicle’s Steve McViker continues the Chronicle’s series on the problem that no Harri County official seems to want to solve. Despite showing a “good faith effort” to correct problems at the jail, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards has concluded that the jail will remain decertified for the third straight year.
During an inspection of the jail earlier this month, commission officials found that “although there were over 700 available beds, there were 548 inmates without bunks,” which followed a 2005 commission report in which it noted that just under 1,300 inmates were sleeping on the floor. Meanwhile, Harris County officials continue to dawdle over increasing staffing at the jail and even are dragging their feet in regard to the Chronicle’s open records requests regarding jail matters.
Last year, Scott Henson over at Grits for Breakfast wrote a fine series of posts that addressed the reasons for the problems at the Harris County Jail and what needed to be done to correct those problems. As has been the case for decades in Houston, Harris County officials continue to do the minimum necessary to avoid a state-mandated closing of the jail while avoiding the difficult work of actually addressing the causes of the jail’s problems by implementing necessary changes in the jail’s administration and the local criminal justice system.
A community’s soul is often reflected by how the community deals with constituencies who are unpopular and have no political power. In the case of Houston and the people most impacted by the Harris County Jail, that reflection is ugly and — as shown by this community’s remarkable response to the Gulf Coast evacuees last year after Hurricane Katrina — not an accurate indication of our community’s conscience. It is well-past time that Harris County officials prepare and implement a plan to resolve the local jail’s chronic problems once and for all, and here’s hoping that the Chronicle and the TCJS stay on their tails until they do. Houston deserves better.