Lead Article
In Our County Jails, People Wait for Treatment . . .
Michael Barajas gives us a glimpse of what it’s like if you have a loved one with a mental problem who breaks the law and ends up in jail. His story in the San Antonio Current of January 2012 begins by telling us about Sam:
Nearly four years ago, “Sam’s” paranoia had grown so intense that he believed spies followed him in the shadows everywhere he went. His house, car, motorcycle, workplace, were all bugged, he believed. “I was in a very bad place, psychologically,” said Sam, who asked that his name not be used for this story, by phone from the Kerrville State Hospital last month. “I thought everyone was after me.”
Recent Posts
- Private Prisons Hide Their Game
- Sheriff Can Use Commissary Fund for Whatever Projects He Wants!
- Are Jails Ignoring New Laws That Protect Texas Women?
- GALVESTON JAIL BLOCKS BOOKS: PLN SUED
- In Our County Jails, People Wait for Treatment . . .
- Texas Inmates with MRSA Staph?
- 2011 Report on Medical Care in Texas Prisons
- Abilene Mom Thanks TJP
- Babysteps: Can Texas’ New Approach to Prisoners with Newborns Help Keep Families Together?
- Sheriff Joe Special: Shackling & Abuse of Pregnant Immigrant
Featured Articles
Adan Castaneda Comes Home from Iraq – To Jail
Adan Castaneda sat in the Comal County Jail in an isolation or ad seg cell for more than six months without any treatment. We have no way of knowing how that affected his mental and physical condition; however, he has been moved and is receiving treatment finally, after his family’s persistent efforts and with assistance of attorneys and legal manuevers.
An important and entertaining blog called Grits for Breakfast points to the reason for the delay in Adan’s treatment: “Mental-health cuts in the state budget exacerbated a competency restoration crisis involving hundreds of, inmates who’ve been declared incompetent to stand trial waiting in local county jails for months on end until a state hospital bed opens up. . . . .Thus, state legislative policy is turning county jails into de facto mental asylums.”
So as we saw with Adan, all over this state, veterans with PTSD or other injuries and conditions sit in solitary cells, because the jails can’t risk placing them into general population and there there are no state hospital beds for them. The Veterans administration is not helping. Shame on them and shame on Texas!
Pregnant in a Texas County Jail?
CONTACT US at diana@texasjailproject.org and let us know what you experienced in jail.
On any given day, some 500 women who are pregnant will be incarcerated in Texas county jails. Some are only held there a few days, but others may be incarcerated for weeks and months and some will deliver their babies there.
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Job Training for Harris County Jail Inmates
Houston Community College is working with 205 inmates now, teaching trades and encouraging them to enroll in classes after they are released. We are glad to hear of any classes or training made available to county jail inmates – but we have to ask: are their classes geared to women inmates as well? Females in our jails usually receive fewer opportunities like this.
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What Happens to Kids in Adult Jails?
Have you heard of any “certified juveniles” in your county jail? Please send us your information about their experiences there. We can keep your name out of it if you wish, but we need to know more about Texas kids in county jails. Certified means that a person under 17 is accused of a crime
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Letters from Families
Abilene Mom Thanks TJP I would like to thank Diane and Diana and the Texas Jail Project for coming to Abilene and showing the medical neglect and mistreatment of inmates in the Taylor County Jail. She listened to our stories when everyone else had a dead ear.
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lack of medical care
Texas Inmates with MRSA Staph? “Punishment for crimes does not mean subjecting people to deadly diseases.” That is from a story you should read if you know anybody who went into a county jail and caught MRSA staph. Or if you know anyone who already had staph and the jail wouldn’t treat their infection. Also, please email diana@texasjailproject.org about any such cases in Texas.
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Women and Jails
Are Jails Ignoring New Laws That Protect Texas Women? In his blog, ACLU policy strategist Matt Simpson reports on the implementation of new laws protecting women in Texas jails. In 2009, the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Jail Project (TJP) worked with state legislators to pass laws protecting pregnant inmates and babies born to incarcerated mothers. Simpson describes follow-up research that shows these reforms have not been publicized, promoted or implemented. In other words, jails and sheriffs are not really following the law!
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Conditions in County Jails
Guzman Dies in Bexar County Jail and Mother Asks Why On January 4, Ricardo Guzman got a haircut. The 43-year-old San Antonio resident wanted to look good when he turned himself in at court the next day for outstanding drug-possession charges. Guzman had no way of knowing that trusting himself to Bexar County could play a part in his death three days later.
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Advocacy for Change
Mitrice Richardson Tragedy Could Have Been In Texas Recently the Texas Jail Project was contacted by Ronda Hampton, a practicing psychologist and family friend of a young woman, Mitrice Richardson, who died after being released from a county jail at night in California. Her body was not found for nearly a year. Hampton has joined others in protests to the LA
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Legislation & Legal Action
GALVESTON JAIL BLOCKS BOOKS: PLN SUED Texas Jail Project has heard from family members with inmates in the Galveston jail who are unable to receive books ordered from publishers – even in one case, a Bible. Worst case scenario was a wonderful young woman named Ana facing childbirth for the first time, alone and without comfort or advice as her mother was living and working in Europe. Ana’s mother ordered a book to help Ana understand some of the physical changes, pain and problems she was having, but the jail would not allow her to have it! So it’s very satisfying to see that a lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court against Galveston County, Sheriff Freddie Poor, former Sheriff Gean Leonard and a Sheriff’s lieutenant. The suit alleges unconstitutional censorship at the county jail in violation of the First Amendment.
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