Jail By Jail

The Moore County Justice Center is one of many construction projects inspected by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Wiginton Hooker Jeffry PC completed design development in December. The jail has 148 beds, not counting the holding cells.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards works for jail operators and officers, inmates and their families, sheriffs, county judges, the commissioner’s court, governor’s office, legislature, and taxpayers-all to provide a professional and safe environment.

The commission was created in 1975 by the state Legislature (House Bill 272) to implement a policy that all county and municipal jail facilities conform to minimum standards of construction, maintenance, and operation. Over the years the commission’s jurisdiction grew to include privately operated facilities, if they house county inmates or sentenced Texas inmates. And although the commission is not responsible for jails with federal inmates, they receive requests to inspect those facilities as well.

By state statute, the commission must review, although not necessarily change, the standards every five years. The commission is also responsible for developing and maintaining rules and procedures establishing minimum standards, inspection procedures, enforcement policies, and technical assistance for the construction, equipment, maintenance, and operation of jail facilities; the custody, care, and treatment of inmates; and programs of rehabilitation, education, and recreation.

The 17-employee commission includes a grievance officer who responds to and investigates inmate complaints. Three people review construction plans, whether it’s a new facility or a remodel.

“The federal folks like our inspection process and feel like our set of eyes provide an objective look at the facility,” explained Terry Julian, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. “Some jails have that inspection process as part of their inter-governmental agreement with the feds.”

Before the commission came into effect, and part of the reason the agency was initially supported, was that the only recourse an inmate with a grievance had was to file a federal lawsuit, according to Julian. At present, the state of Texas has no federal lawsuits pending against any of its county jails.

The commission inspects every jail at least once a year. There are three inspectors who travel the Lone Star State, which is comprised of 254 counties-16 do not have a jail. Of the estimated 262 jails that were most recently inspected (some of which are private), 207 were in compliance. A facility is either compliant, and therefore certified, or not. An incomplete is occasionally reported.

“The federal courts have excepted our standards and if a jail is in compliance, the judges by and large have agreed that the jail is operating in a correct manner, if in fact they are certified,” said Julian.

Since its inception, there has not been a single fire-related death in an accredited jail. The standards require that jails have smoke detectors to address the emergency as quickly as possible, and have some means of smoke removal.

“We feel that the sprinklers save property and smoke removal systems save lives,” said Julian.

A former jail inspector is Bob Patterson, who has been jail administrator for Bell County since 1995 and will be sworn in as American Jail Association president on May 18, 2005, at its annual AJA training conference and jail expo in Kansas City, Mo.

Admitting he is partial to the commission, Patterson explained how hard it is to quantify the monetary savings for sheriff’s departments, taxpayers, and the state:

“Can I say that the jail commission saved Bell County $5 million over the course of its tenure? No. Has it saved untold millions for counties across the state? Most certainly.”

Patterson explained how hard it is to know exact savings when cases are never brought to court in the first place.

“You can’t really quantify how they help Texas jails. The savings can’t be tallied because if the cases never come to court or you are not sued because you were in compliance, you’ll never know what you were facing, you’ll never know what the county could have lost,” said Patterson. “Whereas if you are out of compliance, then you are totally exposed to any form of litigation.” Patterson noted that if you are proceeding along established guidelines and procedures it is much easier, operationally speaking, to defend yourself from those issues.

As a former inspector and county judge, Julian said that, “we are going to do all we can to make sure that everybody is treated the same. Jail is a place where you keep people waiting to go to trial, and so they have different rights and privileges than folks in the prison system do.”

He is very proud of the classification system in place and the way that it can be used in any size jail, whether it is Harris County with 8,000 plus inmates or Mason County with five. Moreover, the same set of standards apply to all jails, regardless of size.

“By having plans that are uniform, it helps the jail stay out of the courthouse,” said Julian.