Weekly news round-up 3/31/25
April 5, 2025
Texas Jail Project was quoted in four articles this week. Read the highlights below and click on the links to read the full articles. Houston Chronicle: Harris County Commissioners discuss…
Topics: 2025news, Custody Death, Jail Expansion, Medical, Mental Health, out of state custody deaths, outsourcing, Texas Legislature
Texas Jail Project was quoted in four articles this week. Read the highlights below and click on the links to read the full articles.
Houston Chronicle: Harris County Commissioners discuss building ‘mental-health focused facility’ to tackle jail issues
Rather than helping me and the other grieving mothers, you’re trying to expand the same system that robbed my son from me… We all know that a new jail will not solve the problems going on in the inside the jail because it’s not an issue of overcrowding, but an issue of overcriminalizing.”
Houston Chronicle: Family of Houston man who died in jail files lawsuit against Harris County, Sheriff Ed Gonzalez
This article covers the lawsuit we helped bring after Jaleen Anderson died in-custody at a LaSalle Corrections jail in Louisiana. His death is part of a larger trend of in-custody deaths occurring out of state that are not subject to the same oversight that in-custody deaths have here in Texas. Read about the press conference we held on April 3 at this link.
Full Article at Houston ChronicleTexas Tribune: Despite Texas defendant’s death in Louisiana prison, lawmakers unlikely to end reliance on out-of-state lockups
This article covers several bills being considered at the state legislature, as well as the lawsuit we helped bring after Jaleen Anderson died in-custody at a LaSalle Corrections jail in Louisiana. Below are the bills the article discussed:
- SB 2289: would mandate jails to report how many inmates are confined in out-of-state lockups and the total number of deaths that have occurred in them
- SB 2263: would require the justice of the peace where the county jail is located to conduct an investigation into out-of-state jail deaths and file a report with the attorney general within a month of the inmates’ death
- HB 4642: would require out-of-state correctional facilities that house Texas inmates to meet the minimum standards set by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards
Regarding the lawsuit, TJP Executive Director and co-founder was quoted:
We hope this lawsuit will send a strong message that our community will no longer tolerate our loved ones being arbitrarily ripped away from their families and transferred hundreds of miles away
The Austin Chronicle: Texas Law Would Make Law Enforcement Misconduct Records More Secretive
This article covers HB 2486 and SB 781, bills under consideration at the Texas Legislature. They would require all law enforcement agencies to create a confidential personnel file for each officer within the department. Records in that file would not be accessible by “any other agency or person.”
Full Article at The Austin Chronicle