Daniel Moreno

My name is Daniel E. Moreno, and I am currently a social worker and mitigation specialist with the Travis County Public Defender’s Office (TCPDO). My job focuses on getting people out of jail, connecting individuals to community and mental health services, providing support counseling to people in jail, and fulfilling the mitigation function on defense teams. 

Prior to working with TCPDO, I worked at the Travis County Correctional Complex as a Clinical Mental Health Professional providing treatment and support to people with co-occurring mental health and substance use disorders. This experience helped me more thoroughly understand the reality of the conditions and treatment that people in jail have to endure. It also reaffirmed my passion to help individuals and family members impacted by this broken system. 

My interest in working with people who have been impacted by the carceral system stems from my own family’s experiences. Like many people of color, I have experienced the impact of having multiple loved ones come in contact with the carceral system throughout my life. My wife and I are currently supporting my brother-in-law who spent almost 10 years in TDCJ. The last 10 years of having to deal with the State, 

attorneys, parole officers, the Texas jail and prison system, and the arbitrary nonsense of “correctional rules and regulations” has been nothing less than draining and traumatic. 

Now, my goal is to advocate and do my part to change a broken system that hurts the individuals it claims to help and the families who become the ignored collateral damage of this system. This is why I want to be a part of the Texas Jail Project (TJP). The values found at the heart of TJP resonate deeply with my own. TJP understands that the Texas criminal legal system is inherently harmful and perpetuates trauma at all levels of society – and communities of color always find themselves most affected. The work that TJP does to help liberate these communities is vital to bring about real, lasting change in a state that is known for its punitive, counterproductive, trauma-inducing carceral and legal systems. I want to be a part of TJP because it is an organization that is loving, courageous, and relentless in its efforts toward abolition within Texas. 

Finally, I believe my own personal and professional experience will help TJP establish itself more firmly as an organization that is informed and led by people who are intimately familiar with the system. As mentioned earlier, my personal experience has given me a unique perspective on the collateral damage that loved ones of incarcerated individuals must endure and navigate. Losing someone to this system is a form of ambiguous loss. The grief and heartache found in ambiguous loss is one that not many are familiar with, and yet so many have endured it. Ambiguous loss is a form of loss that is not complete. The person or thing is alive, but it feels as if it has died; the life you once knew has ended abruptly without closure. This is the grief my family and I had to hold when we heard my uncle was sentenced to 20+ years in prison; when my other uncle was arrested, deported, and prohibited from entering the US; when my brother-in-law was arrested on my birthday and sentenced to 9 years in prison, leaving my young niece and nephew without a present father and my sister-in-law pregnant. These are the stories and experiences of ambiguous loss that need to be at the forefront of advocacy, because these are the voices that are ignored and forgotten. This is what I personally bring to TJP. Professionally, I bring comprehensive knowledge and understanding of the real life conditions and treatment that people in jail have to endure in a post-pandemic world. Having served in the Travis County Correctional Complex during the height of the pandemic, I saw the flaws of the system even more brutally exposed than before. People on lockdown behind doors for longer periods of time, jail staff morale low and leaving in record numbers, mental health staff struggling to keep up with the demands of the job, the lack of appropriate policies and technology to properly address the needs of people in the jail – and all of this directly harmed incarcerated individuals and their loved ones the most. As COVID-19 cases went down, I continued to see the effects of this broken, violent system on the wellbeing and mental health of people who were the most vulnerable. Through my work with clients at the jail, I saw first-hand how the system criminalizes trauma, mental illness, substance use, and homelessness. The resilience and strength of my clients continues to be inspiring, but their stories and experiences in the jail remain etched in my mind. These are the professional stories and experiences that I bring to the table to help TJP establish itself as an organization that is informed and led by people who know the system intimately.