After a significant decline during the coronavirus pandemic, the number of people in Texas prisons has been on the rise in recent months and soon could cross the threshold of 130,000, according to state records. Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice told the Chronicle the uptick had been expected, with prosecutors slowly moving forward with cases that stalled during the pandemic.

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Five years since her release, Maggie Luna has kept the mail she received from family during her two stints in Texas state prisons: drawings from her daughter, a letter from her niece, prayer cards from her mother. “It was something that I was able to open up while I was in prison and just be able to escape for a minute,” she says. But under a new program launching in some Texas facilities this week, prison mail is about to become less personal, as prisoners will no longer be allowed to receive any physical mail from loved ones.

There is no way to sugarcoat this - according to Texas Human and Health Services (THHS) in 2020, the U.S. Department of Veteran Affairs reported that 1.4 Texas veterans commit suicide every day, and 75 percent of those deaths involved a firearm. Last June, the state capitol took action on veteran suicide by signing HB-671 into law urging the Texas Veterans Commission (TVC) to adopt a suicide prevention campaign and shine the light on Post-Traumatic-Stress Disorder (PTSD) driven suicides.

The Texas Senate on Wednesday got closer to raising the penalty for voting illegally from a misdemeanor to a felony, as well as making it easier to convict a voter without proving they intended to cast an illegal ballot. The legislation is a priority for Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick and other Republican lawmakers who have pushed for it since the 2021 change lowering the penalty to a misdemeanor, despite no evidence of widespread voter fraud in Texas.

LaTosha Williams blocks a tear from slipping down her cheek as she walks toward a Cedar Crest apartment she rented nearly three decades ago. The two- story complex off Bonnie View Road in Dallas takes her back to when she was a young wife with four kids, selling drugs out of an upstairs unit. Williams, then 21, balanced two rents, leasing another home just minutes away on Humphrey Drive, where she and her family lived.

In the Lone Star State, a person’s path through the justice system is rarely guided by justice. It’s guided by politics. A young person of color fears when a police car follows them, knowing some police scour the streets looking for an excuse to turn on their red and blues. A person short on cash can’t make bail, calling the jail their temporary home – a rich person cuts a check and walks immediately.

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Baquee Sabur's life changed when he had to spend a night sleeping under a Houston overpass. "It was horrible," Sabur said. "Every car that pounces on there, you hear it. It's a dark place. You want to fall asleep, but you don't know if anyone's going to approach you. It's dirty, and you're hanging out where bugs and rats are."

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Marci Marie Simmons says one hug threw her into more than a month without human contact. Consoling a crying inmate violated a policy against touching other inmates, she claimed, and solitary confinement was the punishment.

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When Jennifer Toon arrived at yet another prospective Austin rental in November 2021, she was welcomed by a dead rat. Its tail, curled limply on the duplex parking lot, was thicker than her cat’s. While the rat seemed welcome, Toon soon learned that she was not.

She thought she was going to die in prison, because of the poor conditions. Today, Maggie Luna is fighting for the lives of her fellow Texans behind bars. She joins the #JustUs Speaks Podcast.

Hear the full interview from the JustUs Speaks Podcast.