2024 Tax Form 990 Narrative

ADVOCACY, ORGANIZING & MOVEMENT BUILDING

(A). Anti-jail expansion Campaign

In Harris county, we founded a diverse coalition comprising six organizations, family members of people who died pretrial in custody, formerly incarcerated people, youth and community advocates united in their vision of shrinking the carceral footprint along with increased investments in social services as a means to shrink the carceral footprint. The coalition has 193 members on its listserve, conducted 28 meetings including work parties, two community teach-ins and mobilized over 90 registrations for public comment at Commissioners Court. 

(B). Casework advocacy

(i) Our HelpLine received 470 calls, 1,539 emails and 193 letters from over 35 counties. We responded to over 60% of all calls and emails with 30% of the cases needing multiple responses and interventions. 

(ii) We filed complaints with the state regulatory agency TX Commission on Jail Standards or supported loved ones in filing complaints to state agencies and law enforcement in over 30 per cent of the cases. 

(iii) Of the emails and phone calls we received, we handled 414 complaints related to medical issues, 674 complaints related to medications and medical neglect, 440 for people with serious mental illness, 14 for people with intellectual and developmental disability, 27 for people who were pregnant, 23 veterans and approximately 200 related to use of force and injuries.

(C). Organizing

(i) We multiplied our statewide community base by 3 times and transformed the tone of the quarterly public meetings of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards through intentional organizing, movement building, media outreach and mutual aid. Over four quarterly meetings, we brought over 120 comments in total from community members from 25 different counties but were unable to publish all the videos for lack of resources. We created and published 27 videos of powerful testimonies https://www.youtube.com/@texasjailproject/playlists The energy from these meetings sparked self-led movements in Bexar county, Tarrant county, Harris county and Sabine county. We also mobilized members of the press, legislative staff and both criminal justice advocates and mental health advocates to attend and speak at these meetings. 

(ii) In January, Tarrant County Commissioner Simmons invited us to participate virtually in a town hall organized in Arlington attended by over a 100 community members, to discuss the alarming rise of custody deaths in Tarrant county jail. Under Sheriff Waybourn, at least 65 community members have reportedly died in the jail since 2017. We joined the Sheriff, allies and advocates from United Fort Worth and Broadway Baptist Justice Network, and criminal court representatives to interrogate the culture and policies that have led to so many deaths. Due to our collective efforts, the Department of Justice is considering an intervention in the jail.

(iii) As part of our effort to decriminalize mental illness, we brought 6 public comments from directly impacted families to the board meetings of the Local Mental Health Authorities in 2 counties that are mandated by the state to provide mental health services to the community

(D). Litigation & civil rights support

(i) Our advocacy, research and technical assistance was essential and instrumental in winning a total of $2.71 million in legal settlements for families of three community members who suffered serious harm in pretrial detention (Chasity Congious https://www.keranews.org/government/2024-05-21/tarrant-county-approves-largest-lawsuit-settlement-to-chasity-congious-whose-baby-died-in-jail

and Kelly Masten https://www.keranews.org/criminal-justice/2024-12-02/with-a-775-000-settlement-pending-the-bill-for-tarrant-county-jail-lawsuits-keeps-rising from Tarrant county & Glenn Hayes – one of our bailouts from Smith county. (https://www.texasjailproject.org/2024/08/of-loss-collective-struggle-mid-year-24-newsletter/)  Litigation is ongoing in two other cases of over detention which we brought to our allies at TX Fair Defense Project.

(ii) We documented Mykala Savage’s story and the experience of other pregnant women in Harris County jail in our essays published in The Slate and The Appeal magazines in 2022. After her release, we supported her with mutual aid and legal resources. In February of 2024, after almost two years of struggling to unearth all the details of her horrific time inside Harris county jail, we collaborated with Rights Behind Bars to file a lawsuit against Harris county jail.

(iii) We provided referrals in 10 other injury and death cases to national civil rights attorneys and provided technical support to both the attorneys and the families through the intake process.

2. NARRATIVE SHIFT/MEDIA/STORYTELLING

(A). In 2024 we were successful in getting 203 stories published on custody deaths, 125 on jail expansion/overcrowding, 24 on cash bail and 60 on mental illness and IDD. TJP and/ our community members were featured or quoted in 43 of these stories. 

(B). We were featured on a three part series on NPR Here & Now on Harris county bail reform due to the launch of Texas Freedom Stories which was our collaborative effort with national partner Zealous to highlight the success of misdemeanor bail reform in Harris county.

(C). National exposure after being quoted in Jessica Pishko’s new book about Sheriffs ‘The Highest Law in the Land.’

(D). Our community stories were featured and our work quoted in at least 28 national, statewide and county level stories including TX Observer, KFF Health News, Boltsmag, NPR, Marshall Project, etc. All the 2024 stories are compiled on this page of our website: https://www.texasjailproject.org/2024/12/texas-jail-project-through-news-stories-in-2024/

(E). We were prominently featured in a new documentary short “Criminal” with Alec Karakatsanis of Civil Rights Corps, that was screened at the Philadelphia Blackstar Film Festival and NYC film festival. 

(F). “We need mental health care, not a jail cell!” Our lead mental health advocate Dalila Reynoso spoke at over 70 percent of the county commissioners court meetings in Smith county for the past four years. She has been tirelessly shedding light on the criminalization of mental illness in her community and passionately advocating for more non-carceral mental health and substance use disorder resources. Dalila spoke about the tragic suicide of Nathan Lee Johns in 2023 in Smith county jail after he was arrested at a local hospital following a suicide attempt. She was joined by youth organizer Amy whose brother has been repeatedly arrested during mental health crises.

(G). In Spring, our lead mental health advocate, Dalila attended a mental health symposium organized by the Texas Tribune in Tyler, Smith county. For nearly four years we have been working diligently on diverting people with mental illness and developmental disabilities from the Smith county jail. Dalila made essential points about the importance of not criminalizing symptoms of mental illness and creating a culture of community based care instead of punishment. Following the symposium, her letter to the editor was published in the Tyler newspaper.

3. POLICY ACTIVITIES & ACHIEVEMENT

(A). The Government Accountability Office interviewed us extensively and named TJP as a source in their 2024 maternal health in correctional facilities federal report. We also briefed Sen. Ossoff’s office for the Senate sub-Committee on Human Rights’ hearing held in August, on pregnancy and births in jails and prisons. 

(B). Advocacy Spotlight by nationally renowned Prison Policy Initiative on our work forcing Sheriffs to report previously unreported custody deaths. We are very proud of this work that led to 16 previously unreported deaths being reported within 18 months. https://www.prisonpolicy.org/blog/2024/08/06/texas_jail_project/

(C). In January, TJP’s co-founder & executive director was appointed to the state regulatory agency Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ Administrative and Rules Advisory Committee as a voting member. Krish is the only woman, advocate and person of color on this committee with a vote. Through my position, we brought two key rule changes to the committee within a year – a new rule to count out of state pretrial custody deaths and notification to guardians of people with disabilities when their ward is incarcerated. We are confident that these rules will be adopted next year.

(D). Appointment of our client & community member Dr. Liz Piñon to the Intellectual and Developmental Disability Advisory Committee run by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, due to our advocacy and relationships. We featured her son’s story and her transformation from a parent to an advocate in our January newsletter.  

(E). TJP co-founder & executive director Krish Gundu was appointed by Harris County Commissioner Briones to the Harris County Resident Advisory Committee to advise the county on potential new jail facilities and alternatives to carceral solutions.

(F). TJP co-founder & executive director Krish Gundu was invited to join the new incoming Harris County DA’s mental health court transition team. This is significant because Harris county jail is the largest warehouse of people with mental illness in the state of Texas and a battleground for all things hated by the conservative State legislature.

(G). Four community members, our executive director and two team members were invited to speak on a panel about citizen oversight of law enforcement at the annual conference of the National Association of Citizen Oversight of Law Enforcement NACOLE conference, The Atlantic Monthly panel on bail reform at the McArthur Safety & Justice Conference and three county government events including the screening of TX Freedom Stories at the Harris County O’Donnell Public Meeting this fall. Our ED was also appointed to NACOLE’s oversight committee which pushed for more voices of lived experience in the NACOLE panels.

(H). We won a year long public health fellowship –  third year med student – from the prestigious Albert Schweitzer Fellowship who provided critical support in documenting our growing casework with people with serious mental illness and intellectual and developmental disabilities to produce a wide spectrum of resources for lawmakers in the upcoming legislative session. We expect this Fellowship to be an annual ongoing partnership that will help us reframe public safety through a public health lens.

(I). We continue to be the go-to experts and clearing house for statewide media on the complexity of pretrial detention and the intersection of the public mental health system and criminal punishment system. TJP’s co-founder & executive director was interviewed on KXAN news about the newly released State Auditor’s Report on the forensic waitlist which was based on SB 1677  – legislation that we successfully worked on last session with Sen. Perry. 

(K). We were invited to join MacArthur Genius Fellow Dr. Andrea Armstrong’s Carceral Death Data Collective which consists of academics, advocates and researchers from across the country focused on transparency in custody deaths. 

(L). We succeeded in retrieving our bailout funds on a bailout we conducted in 2022 of an American citizen – a transgender woman – who was arrested and incarcerated under Gov. Abbott’s illegal and unconstitutional Operation Lone Star. This is an incredible and unique three year saga that we are unable to share publicly. None of the other well-funded non-profits here were willing to step up when she was begging to be rescued from the horrific sexual assaults in pretrial custody. We partnered for funds with Florida LGBTQ Freedom Fund and with legal support from our friends at TX Fair Defense Project, we flew our team member down to the Rio Grande valley to secure her release, provide material aid and facilitate her travel back to her home in Seattle. The state eventually dropped all the charges against her last year but it took until this fall to get our bail money back. 

DIRECT AID

(A). Operation Lone Star: $4,279.98 disbursed to 15 individuals at the request of their counsel to enable transportation to court hearings. 

(B). Mothers Solidarity Fund – $2,163 disbursed to 7 mothers whose children died in-custody in jail under pretrial detention. These funds met their emergency needs such as housing, utilities, medical, etc.

(C). Houston No New Jail/Communities Not Cages – $4,593.83 to three individuals as aid/stipend.

(D). Jail Commissary/Jail Phone Calls/Miscellaneous: $5188