Media spotlight week 6/23/25
June 30, 2025
Three Harris County Jail custody deaths in 48 hours Houston Chronicle, Houston Public Media, Fox News, Hoodline, and Abc13 cover three custody deaths in the Harris County Jail that occurred…
Topics: 2025news, Custody Death, Medical
Harris County
Three Harris County Jail custody deaths in 48 hours
Houston Chronicle, Houston Public Media, Fox News, Hoodline, and Abc13 cover three custody deaths in the Harris County Jail that occurred over the time frame of just 48 hours. Harris County has already seen 10 custody deaths in 2025, equivalent to the total number of in-custody deaths for the entire year of 2024.
The bricks and walls are not killing people. It’s the punitive and inhumane culture that has turned pretrial detention into a death sentence for so many.
Below is the statement we provided to Houston Public Media:
“After being in continuous non-compliance for over three years, Harris county jail continues to be an engine of death, disease and violence as evidenced by the latest series of custody deaths and lawsuits for use of excessive force.
We have yet to see a meaningful plan from the county to remedy the issues within the jail except to call for a bigger jail or a mental health jail. The bricks and walls are not killing people. It’s the punitive and inhumane culture that has turned pretrial detention into a death sentence for so many.
Additionally, we are extremely disappointed that HCSO has no policy in place to inform either the community or the commissioners court in a timely manner when there are serious incidents such as custody deaths.
Lastly, we are calling upon the OAG to file an injunction against Harris county jail as requested by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in their last two quarterly meetings. We cannot and will not tolerate this any longer.”
Fort Worth Star-Telegram: Texas jail commission failed to investigate complaints properly, audit says
Issues with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards’ processes and data maintenance jeopardized its ability to determine if county jails comply with minimum standards, according to a state auditor’s report published last week.
The audit’s main issue involved its processes for dealing with complaints. The commission began to receive more complaints in March 2022 after a bill passed in the state legislature the year before required jails to post information about the complaints process in living areas. The bill was the direct result of work by Texas Jail Project. The organization had been receiving complaints from people in jails who mistook it for the state regulatory agency.
The audit found the commission failed to reach out to jails within the minimum time frames, failed to tell people when complaint cases were closed, and had many incorrect entries.
Complaints are what should be driving who they inspect, how they inspect, what issues they look for.
In the case of the death of Vernon Ramsey, the commission responded to his wife’s complaint after he had already died, using language that would indicate the commission thought he was still alive. Texas Jail Project Executive Director and Co-founder, Krish Gundu said to Fort Worth Star-Telegram, without collecting, maintaining and using complaint data properly, the commission will continue to send out the “slap-in-the-face responses after people die.”