Weekly news round-up 4/21/25
May 2, 2025
Read the highlights of Texas Jail Project news coverage below and click on the links to read the full articles. Bolts Magazine: Officials Play “Accountability Ping Pong” With Jail Deaths…
Topics: 2025news, Cash Bail, Custody Death, Medical, Mental Health, Pretrial Policy, Sandra Bland Act, TCJS, Texas Legislature
Read the highlights of Texas Jail Project news coverage below and click on the links to read the full articles.
Bolts Magazine: Officials Play “Accountability Ping Pong” With Jail Deaths in Texas
This week, national news outlet, Bolts Magazine, covered Tarrant County Sheriffs Office and its failure to comply with the Sandra Bland Act. The Sheriffs Office has avoided participating in independent investigations of its in-custody deaths, which are required by the Sandra Bland Act.
“Since Texas started requiring them, these independent investigations have documented jail staff across the state ignoring people with deteriorating health, denying treatment for chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, and even mocking people who were dying and in pain.”
As the legislature considers bills that would make custody death investigations more transparent, and those that would make information about custody deaths harder to find, stories like this one are instructive in demonstrating the importance of transparency and accountability.
Had there been transparency in this whole process, would we have gone for almost three years not knowing that so many deaths had not been investigated?
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Jail commission, Fort Worth PD change statements on receipt of jail death videos
This article reveals various inconsistencies in communications from law enforcement agencies in Texas. Both Texas Commission on Jail Standards and the Fort Worth Police Department claimed they had not received video footage related to a custody death, but later informed the Fort Worth Star-Telegram that they had received the video footage.
“For any form of oversight to be effective, it at least requires a basic foundation of transparency,” Gundu said. “That should, at a minimum, necessitate the disclosure of all relevant materials that could support an independent investigation. The Sheriff’s decision not to turn over relevant, and likely revealing, material does nothing other than undermine public trust in that process.”
The Final Call: Excessive U.S. jail times and the need for reform
The Final Call discusses extended pretrial detention, bail reform, and disinvestment in mental health care and social services.
People are more prone to incarceration when their basic needs are not being met—housing, healthcare, jobs, food. If that’s not being met, then they’re more vulnerable to incarceration.