Learn more about Texas Jail Project
New Yorker Film Festival : Criminal
We hope you enjoyed this beautifully artistic and informative film as much as we did. Harris County Jail is in crisis and we witness this everyday. Our case managers receive dozens of urgent requests from Harris County and Texas jails each week pleading for help with loved ones with mental illness who have been arrested, fear of family members not receiving simple medications to manage health, husbands/sisters/sons facing inhumane living conditions and unjust treatment, and many more.
We are Texas Jail Project
What does Texas Jail project do?
We Advocate
Last year our HelpLine received 470 calls, 1,539 emails and 193 letters. We responded to over 60% of all calls and emails with 30% of the cases needing multiple responses and interventions.
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.
We distributed over $12,000 in Direct Aid in 2024 under Operation Lone Star, funds to mothers of children lost in custody deaths, and aid to incarcerated folks.
We Organize
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. Please see some of the YouTube videos we created and published of the powerful testimonies given by our community members at these meetings.
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 Make Policy
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.
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.
We Tell Stories
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.
We were featured on a three part series on NPR Here & Now on Harris county bail reform due to the launch of our Texas Freedom Stories which was an effort to highlight the success of misdemeanor bail reform in Harris county.
Why donate to Texas Jail Project?
They call back when we ask for help. They know the system and get people real care. They bring justice. They change policy. They help us tell our stories.
How we help
At Texas Jail Project, we have case managers and community advocates that respond and help many families with loved ones facing incarceration. Our help lines regularly help people experiencing mental illness find better outcomes and more support in jail, advocate for timely release of people who are past their sentencing timeframe, provide commissary money for phone calls and other needs, and help families escalate issues with the state that can bring about better care and longer team meaningful change.
We facilitate storytelling
From the relationships we create and the data we collect on these recurring incidents, we actively support family members to go to the state capital four times a year to tell their story at the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. These are powerful stories by mothers, sisters, loved ones that are worth watching on our YouTube.
These stories are the lived experience of a failed carceral system. We leverage these stories to create new statewide jail rules and policy. This is a critical step in our process that has lead to annual reports on restraining of pregnant women, rule changes… We also are forced to spend lots of resources fighting bad bail bills in our state congress, and have successfully defeated bills over the last 5 years.
We are solutions driven
Harris County Jail has been under remedial order by the state for understaffing for 3 of the last 4 years, and has had at least one active failed inspection for the last 1099+ days. The county continues to pour money into jail expansion, higher pay for jailers, and paying to ship incarcerated people out of state jails. The research is out there, successful projects have been implemented by cities across the country, that there are legitimate strategies for community safety such as mental health support, fair affordable housing, addiction treatment, adequate accessible healthcare, and a guaranteed basic income all lead to dramatic drops in crime more than policing and jails.