Houston senator raises possibility of state oversight for Harris County jail

There have been five apparent suicides at the Harris County Jail in just under two years, a rate that officials have repeatedly stressed is a lower than the national average. There have been five apparent suicides at the Harris County Jail in just under two years, a rate that officials have repeatedly stressed is a lower than the national average. Photo: Johnny Hanson, Staff / Houston Chronicle Photo: Johnny Hanson, Staff / Houston Chronicle Image 1 of / 6 Caption Close Houston senator raises possibility of state oversight for Harris County jail 1 / 6 Back to Gallery

A day after another suicide at the local lock-up, a Houston-based legislator raised the possibility of state oversight for the troubled Harris County jail.

Citing "unsanitary and unhealthy conditions" and the reliance on outsourcing local inmates to other states, state Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, on Thursday penned a scathing letter to newly elected Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo, alleging jail mismanagement and hinting at legislative solutions.

"As I am sure you are aware, there was another suicide earlier this week in the facility," Whitmire wrote. "This brings the tragic uptick in suicides to a total of five since January 2017. It is apparent that mismanagement by the current jail administration continues to be an epidemic that jeopardizes the safety and well-being of our fellow citizens who find themselves housed in the Harris County Jail."

The senator also urged an evaluation of "issues surrounding the operation of the Harris County Jail" and pushed for immediate corrective actions.

READ MORE: State finds Harris County jail out of compliance for 5th time in two years

Hidalgo did not immediately offer comment, but Harris County Sheriff Ed Gonzalez promptly replied with a letter pointing out his office's innovative programs, including a telepsychiatry initiative.

"Although suicide is far less prevalent in the Harris County Jail than in jails elsewhere," he wrote, "I will not be satisfied with our progress until we have zero inmate suicides."

The latest suicide came early Wednesday, after 42-year-old Tracy Whited hanged herself in a jail cell at the 1200 Baker Street facility.

When she first came to the jail for a pair of misdemeanor charges, Whited denied having thoughts of self-harm, authorities said. She went through the intake process, and was seen by medical staff. Afterward, she was assigned to a general population cell with close to 50 other inmates.

Detention officers did all their required checks, jail officials said later, but around 7:20 a.m. Monday another inmate spotted Whited unconscious and hanging from a bed sheet tied to her bunk.

Jail guards cut her down and started CPR, and paramedics rushed her to Ben Taub Hospital. She died on Wednesday morning after she was taken off life support, her family confirmed.

She'd been locked up for criminal mischief and misdemeanor escape, after she knifed the hood of her boyfriend's car and then walked toward the doors of the processing center as she was being booked. A hearing officer ordered her held on $3,000 bond.

Whited's death marked the jail's fifth apparent suicide in just under two years, a rate that officials have repeatedly stressed is a lower than the national average. For local jails across the country, the suicide rate is 50 per 100,000 inmates; in Harris County, that figure is around 16 per 100,000, according to the sheriff's response letter.

As part of a broader effort to improve inmate care, Gonzalez wrote in his response, the jail has increased reentry programs, partnered with Houston Community College, implemented a first-of-its-kind telepsychiatry program to help keep people out of jail with earlier mental health intervention, started offering a non-addictive medication for opioid addiction, and increased training for detention officers.

At the same time, the jail shifted away from outsourcing inmates to Louisiana. Last year, the overcrowded facility at one point shipped more than 500 jailed men and women to a private prison in Jackson Parish. Now, the sheriff said, there are just over 200 outsourced inmates but they're all housed elsewhere in Texas instead of out-of-state.

Gonzalez also highlighted some of the long-standing issues behind jail overcrowding: the ongoing impacts of Hurricane Harvey, the difficulties of housing roughly 600 parole violators and Texas prison inmates that the state hasn't yet picked up, and the lengthy wait for state hospital beds for inmates deemed incompetent to stand trial.

Despite the efforts he outlined, Gonzalez's jail has still netted a number of rebukes from oversight authorities. Back in early 2017, the jail racked up a non-compliance finding by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards after the apparent suicide of 32-year-old Vincent Dwayne Young. Jailers hadn't checked on Young for over an hour when they found him in his cell hanging from a bed sheet.

Afterward, the sheriff's office sought funding to install more surveillance cameras in health services cells and put in place a new policy requiring random weekly audits to make sure jailers were really doing rounds as often as required.

The facility was still in non-compliance when the state chastised them again in April 2017, this time for leaving inmates in a transport van overnight.

Then in December, the jail racked up another non-compliance when Maytham Alsaedy killed himself in his cell just a week before he was scheduled to plead guilty to capital murder.

READ MORE: Justice Department quietly probing Harris County juvenile justice system

The stabbing suspect was already housed in a unit for inmates with serious and persistent mental illnesses, but a jailer had neglected to make the 26-year-old remove newspaper covering a cell window - so staff didn't actually lay eyes on the man or see what he was doing before he killed himself.

Then in August, Debora Lyons hanged herself with a bed sheet in a common area of the jail. According to a source familiar with the case, she had threatened suicide at least once in the days before her death.

In response, the county submitted a corrective action plan, but state officials hadn't yet marked the jail compliant with that plan when they showed up in November for an annual inspection, which the facility failed for serving lukewarm food and having "excessive trash" and cockroaches in some of the cells.

"They continuously find themselves in non-compliance," said jail commission executive director Brandon Wood, adding that the string of non-compliance findings in the past two years is more than "the overwhelming majority" of county jails.

"These shortcomings have caused me to consider legislation that would create a mechanism for the State of Texas to intervene in the management and operations of jail facilities that have demonstrated an inability to provide the protection and safety that all citizens of Texas deserve," Whitmire wrote. "I am currently working with the Jail Standards Commission and other state agencies to find a solution to address this persistent problem."

The letter didn't specify what legislation for state oversight might look like or when such a proposal would be filed. The possibility of a policy solution drew praise from advocates, including Jay Jenkins, a project attorney with the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.

"We applaud and support Senator Whitmire's call for more oversight," he said, "while recognizing that these types of tragedies will continue to happen without a dramatic reduction in the size and scope of our justice system."