by Gary Hunter (Prison Legal News)

A random sampling of 2,000 prisoners in five county jails found that, on average, nearly 15 percent of male prisoners and 31 percent of female prisoners suffer from serious mental illness.

The study was headed by Dr. Henry Steadman, Ph.D and Dr. Steven Samuels, Ph.D of Policy Research Associates Inc. and Dr. Fred C. Osher, M.D. of the Council of State Governments Justice Center.Read more

(Prison Legal News is an independent national publication that covers both prison and jail news/issues. Some jail and prison administrators in Texas have tried to block inmates from receiving it, despite that being unconstitutional.
In 2007, PLN won a suit against Dallas County Jail which had tried to ban newspapers and magazines for inmates.
Prison Legal News has now teamed up with the Texas Civil Rights Project in an important new case described in the following press release... D. Claitor)Read more

Dallas County commissioners voted Tuesday to settle two federal jail neglect lawsuits for close to a half-million dollars.

County officials say the lawsuits are the last major legal claims related to prior conditions in the jail system, which were described a few years ago by federal investigators as being dangerous to inmates' well-being.

As a result of the settlements, the family of former inmate Rosie Sims will receive $250,000, and former inmate Bruce A. McDonald will receive $190,000, minus legal expenses.Read more

Leaders of the Texas Jail Project on Tuesday delivered a harsh indictment of the Taylor County Jail, including a mock "Texas Hellhole Award."

The organization announced the designation at a news conference and rally at the war memorial north of the Taylor County Courthouse that attracted roughly two dozen people.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

ATHENS — An investigation into the death of a Henderson County Jail inmate was turned over to the Texas Rangers following allegations of medical neglect and mistreatment at the hands of jail officials.

The sheriff’s office denies any wrongdoing.

According to jail records, Debra Lee Newton, 56, of Athens, was booked into the Henderson County Jail on Feb. 18 on charges of possession of a controlled substance and was released on her own recognizance April 25. She died 10 days later at East Texas Medical Center in Athens.

Ms. Newton was a familiar face at the jail with charges for drug possession, unlawful use of a motor vehicle, burglary of a habitation and driving while intoxicated dating back to 1989.

Henderson County Sheriff’s Lt. Pat McWilliams said a report by a Dallas television news station that aired Tuesday alleged Ms. Newton was in the custody of the sheriff’s office at the time of her death.Read more

It started when Juana Villegas, an illegal immigrant from Mexico who was nine months pregnant, was pulled over by a police officer in a Nashville suburb for a routine traffic violation.

By the time Mrs. Villegas was released from the county jail six days later, she had gone through labor with a sheriff’s officer standing guard in her hospital room, where one of her feet was cuffed to the bed most of the time. County officers barred her from seeing or speaking with her husband.

After she was discharged from the hospital, Mrs. Villegas was separated from her nursing infant for two days and barred from taking a breast pump into the jail, her lawyer and a doctor familiar with the case said. Her breasts became infected, and the newborn boy developed jaundice, they said.Read more

Ten days into serving her sentence at the Tarrant County Jail, a Fort Worth woman died.

Police say Adrienne Lemons was serving time for unpaid traffic tickets. The 35-year-old was rushed to John Peter Smith Hospital on June 13, where she later died. Lemons leaves behind a 3-year-old child.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