Krish Gundu, executive director, spoke to reporters and writers from all over the nation during the winter storm emergency in February. The Washington Post quoted the calls Texas Jail Project recorded from people in Galveston, Smith, Polk, Victoria and Bowie counties. Incarcerated people, including many who have not been convicted of a crime, reported to the nonprofit that jails lacked blankets and left inmates in freezing conditions NBC news spoke on the phone to a Texas Jail Project contact in the Victoria County Jail and quoted Gundu addressing how our county jails failed to depopulate at the beginning of the pandemic.

Recordings and letters provided by Texas Jail Project provide a glimpse into the jails as COVID-19 continues to spread across Texas. Krish Gundu, coordinator and co-founder of TJP, spoke to Houston Public Media, describing conditions: “…folks in jails have no ability at all to physically distance themselves from one another,” Gundu said. “And they don’t have the kind of access to medical care that you and I have. So the jails are already a public health crisis, but now we’re seeing, now it’s sharply in focus, as to how much of a crisis it is.”

“Texas’ most populous county jails misdemeanor arrestees who can’t afford bail, an unconstitutional “wealth-based” system that leaves poor people languishing behind bars, an inmate claims in a federal class action.” We already knew about a lot of the inequities in the court system in Houston from the Project Orange Jumpsuit report of 2014, but now we know more. And this lawsuit demonstrates that people are not going to take it any more. ODonnell says in her lawsuit “Harris County’s detention system is unconstitutionally rigged against poor people because magistrate judges set their bail with no consideration of whether they can afford it.”