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14 Jul 2018, 2:15 pm
In the past five years, there have been more than 75 arrests or charges of tampering with evidence or records filed against TDCJ officers, records show. [read post]
23 Jun 2018, 8:37 am
TDCJ has dismissed around 500 disciplinary cases that officers filed against inmates under these quota systems, and it's a safe bet there are more among them which were fabricated but will now never be adjudicated.It's the thought of those never-to-be-unearthed, fabricated cases that's caused the chorus from the Old Crow Medicine Show to bounce around Grits' head all morning: "How does the warden sleep at night, after the long day's through? [read post]
7 Jun 2018, 9:03 am
To introduce it to our supporters, we let folks download/listen to it on the thank-you page they see after they sign a petition asking TDCJ to include prison closures in its budget request for the coming session.Go here to sign the petition and give it a listen: It's essentially a simple, blues-based train song, of all things, but I think it's pretty fun. [read post]
7 Jun 2018, 7:06 am
Hurt, a 20-year PR veteran from the Texas Department of Transportation, recalled his brief tenure at TDCJ:"My last interview was with Time magazine about the expiring execution drugs. [read post]
30 May 2018, 2:46 pm
TDCJ officials, however, say that sort of workplace environment is a thing of the past. [read post]
29 May 2018, 10:19 am
The Texas House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee the other day held an under-attended hearing (hardly anyone in the audience and no quorum on the dais - video here) covering three topics: the legal framework behind sexual assault prosecutions (which bled into discussions of crime labs), prosecutor misconduct, and ineffective assistance of counsel (IAC).In this post, let's consider their discussion of ineffective assistance, first recounting what was said on the topic, followed by a few… [read post]
12 May 2018, 7:07 am
"'My life as an execution witness'The Houston Chronicle has an interview with former TDCJ spokesperson Michelle Lyons about her new book chronicling her experience witnessing more than 200 executions over the course of her career.Meditating on misdemeanorsEdward Spillane, a municipal court judge in College Station, has an interesting article in the University of Chicago magazine titled, "The Meditative Judge," in which he discusses issues of "mindfulness"… [read post]
9 May 2018, 7:36 am
.* While 2017 data is out for Texas courts, we haven't seen data more recently than FY 2016 (which ended 21 months ago) on either arrests (DPS) or prison/parole/probation systems (TDCJ). [read post]
7 May 2018, 12:03 pm
After the 5th Circuit said TDCJ could be sued, I'd opined that, "Grits expects TDCJ to ultimately lose the pending heat litigation and for the Legislature to eventually find itself forced to implement significant mitigation measures to reduce heat exposure of inmates and guards. [read post]
7 May 2018, 7:01 am
Earlier this year, a TDCJ legislative handout put the number at 232,278, representing an astonishing 46 percent reduction! [read post]
1 May 2018, 1:59 pm
So probation revocations accounted for about 40 percent of drug offenders entering TDCJ last year. [read post]
1 May 2018, 10:08 am
Caseloads also began to rise slightly after 2014.Bexar, El Paso, and Collin Counties saw big one-year spikes in their numbers of probationers revoked to TDCJ from FYs 2016 to 2017: Increases were 20.1%, 29.7%, and 28.2%, respectively.Overall, about a quarter of probationers with the shortest probation sentences (up to two years) were revoked last year: "Revocations accounted for 38.9% of those offenders terminating community supervision with a probation length of up to two years and… [read post]
18 Apr 2018, 9:49 am
Ask the judges in Harris County.Central Unit property an undocumented necropolisHere's a postscript to the closure of TDCJ's Central Unit in Sugar Land, which long-time readers will recall was the first prison unit closed in the Lone Star State since the founding of the (Texan) Republic. [read post]
10 Apr 2018, 5:10 pm
And those costs are FAR greater than the costs for those prisoners' lawyers.Grits has long believed the Lege should offer the Texas Association of Counties a deal on indigent defense: The state picks up the full indigent defense tab, and counties pay to incarcerate every defendant they send to TDCJ for the whole time they're inside. [read post]
4 Apr 2018, 6:46 am
Overall, state general revenue funds pay for only 24 percent of Medicaid expenditures on substance abuse, but more than 98 percent of treatment funds at TDCJ.With a total incarcerated population of 145,399, TDCJ has 10,047 incarceration beds dedicated to substance abuse, and the parole system has 7,592 people on specialized substance abuse caseloads.There are another 2,897 secure treatment beds used by the probation system, TDCJ reported.Source: Meadows FoundationThe Meadows… [read post]
26 Mar 2018, 2:44 pm
"Litigation to watchA Texas prisoner's family has sued after his suicide, alleging that TDCJ didn't provide him with needed medications.Good riddanceRead a post mortem on the Abel Reyna campaign. [read post]
12 Mar 2018, 7:22 am
To the Youthful Offender Program at TDCJ. [read post]
11 Mar 2018, 6:42 am
TDCJ demanded he fork over a whopping $1,132,024.30 before the agency would release 260,000 pages of records that it said would take 61,000 hours of staff time to process. [read post]
8 Mar 2018, 5:31 am
Whether getting "tougher" on these cases affects local correctional officer employment remains to be seen, but barring abolition of the surcharge, in 2-3 years it wouldn't surprise me if Durham's git-tuff policies come back to bite Walker County voters or even TDCJ itself, just as happened in Victoria.A vote for DAs independence from law enforcementIn Fort Bend County, a 71-year old retired judge named Cliff Vacek won the GOP primary, but the real contest there will be… [read post]
21 Feb 2018, 3:47 pm
Two local rulings with (blurry) statewide implicationsWhen thinking about the 5th Circuit's ruling in the Harris County bail litigation and the settlement in the TDCJ heat litigation, it strikes me there's a notable similarity. [read post]
