Conditions of Confinement

In April, as the coronavirus pandemic was beginning to swell across North Texas, Harry Jacobs was booked into the Dallas County Jail on a charge of aggravated assault with a deadly weapon. Jacobs, 22, was offered probation and scheduled to leave jail June 19 to formally accept his plea deal in a courtroom. But he didn’t make it home until 13 days later, the result of administrative breakdowns regarding his quarantine status that have the Dallas County Sheriff’s Department and the judge in the case pointing fingers about who’s to blame.

Prisons and jails have returned the highest coronavirus case positivity rate in the state of Texas, Gov. Greg Abbott said at a news conference this week. The number of positive prison cases has increased by 568% since May 1.

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One month ago, the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles approved Juan Escobedo’s parole request. But before the state will release the 41-year-old inmate, who is serving a sentence for a third drunken driving offense, he must complete a 6-month substance-abuse recovery program.

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Orlando Vences says prison saved his life. Behind bars, he reconciled with his family and got his GED. Vences said he dropped weight and realized he was destined to do more than just sell drugs. But now, on the verge of his release, he is afraid the system that helped turn his life around could instead mean his death.

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Two months ago, as the threat of COVID-19 began to rapidly alter life on the outside, Sam says changes were happening more slowly inside the Wynne Unit, a state prison in Huntsville, where he’s currently incarcerated. Even as cities banned mass gatherings and told people to stay home, life in lockup remained mostly the same. That is, until late March, when the first Texas prisoners and prison employees began testing positive for the novel coronavirus.

COVID-19 cases have skyrocketed in Texas prisons in recent weeks, with the virus infecting and killing incarcerated people and staff, and likely spreading into nearby communities through the thousands of workers who travel back and forth each day. Yet some confirmed COVID-19 cases in state prisons are being excluded from the Texas health department tally with little explanation from government officials. 

When news of the coronavirus swept across the globe, Jay Jenkins, Harris County project attorney for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, said one place immediately came to mind as a deadly hot spot: jails. “In a pandemic, a jail is one of the most dangerous places to be,” he said.

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 A new report from the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC) provides a snapshot of COVID-19’s impact on the Harris County justice system. The report analyzes population data beginning on March 19, 2020, when Texas Governor Greg Abbott declared a statewide health emergency.

As the coronavirus pandemic took hold in the U.S. last month, the number of young people in local secure detention centers fell by 24%, according to a new survey by The Annie E. Casey Foundation. Some juvenile justice experts would like to see the reduced rates become permanent.