An array of civil litigation has arisen related to the outrageous scandal at the Montague County jail last year, where the Sheriff and other leos allegedly took a cut from drug dealing and coerced sex from inmates. Reports the Wichita Falls Times Record News ("Four women file suit in sheriff scandal," July 28):
As a long list of criminal complaints related to the Montague County Jail scandal works out of the courts, a spate of civil cases related to the scandal are working their way in.
Four women have filed suit in federal court in Wichita Falls in July. Shelley Wrea Lemon, Lashana Dykes and Dawnita Knight filed suit jointly on Thursday. Dee Ann Green filed suit July 15.
The ACLU of Texas filed a lawsuit in Hidalgo County related to how truancy cases are handled in Hidalgo County, according to Valleycentral.com:
The American Civil Liberties Union has filed a class action lawsuit against all nine justices of the peace regarding the way they handle truancy cases.
The lawsuit against the JPs, Sheriff Lupe Treviño and Hidalgo County was filed in McAllen federal court late Monday afternoon.
The ACLU asserts that teens, who were over the age of 17 and cited in truancy cases, had to spend up to a week with adults in the Hidalgo County Jail.
The civil rights group claims many of the teens were ticketed for truancy and other school-related offense before their 17th birtndays.
As we approach an 82nd Texas Legislature that will be dominated by big-picture budget decisions, arguably cuts to mental health spending may be the biggest looming crisis for the justice system at all levels. Lillian Aguirre Ortiz of Mental Health America of Greater Houston recently outlined the effects of proposed cuts to mental health services in a column in the Houston Chronicle:
I have an off-topic food-related question I'm going to throw out to readers just on the off chance somebody has special insight, even though doing so requires me to apologize for self-indulgently straying far from the usual subjects covered on this blog.
A few blogworthy odds and ends:
Law enforcement wish list
Law enforcement interests gathered in North Texas this week to hash out their collective legislative wish list.
Jail pitched as paying for itself losing contracts
Add Dickens County to the list of places that overbuilt their local jails aiming to lease extra space for a profit, only to find taxpayers saddled with sizable debt for a mostly empty facility now that demand for beds is dropping.
Can someone please audit metal detectors at juvie detention centers?
A Dallas area TV station last week reported:
A Dallas County Sheriff's Lieutenant is out of a job after the department says he used jail cameras to watch female inmates in the shower.
Lt. Steven Gentry, an 18-year veteran of the department, violated departmental policy, according to Sheriff's spokesman Kim Leach.
An internal affairs investigation found his conduct unbecoming.
Gentry was fired Monday.
This press release (pdf) notifies us of the upcoming publication of a new book telling the stories of a dozen Texas exonerees.
Reverend Dorothy Budd rejoiced at the recent announcement that deaf inmate Stephen Brodie may become the latest Texas prisoner to win his freedom after being wrongfully convicted.
Budd, a former child-sex-crimes prosecutor for the Dallas County District Attorney’s office, wants the voice of Brodie, along with men who have already been exonerated in Dallas County, to be heard. She and her daughter Peyton share the men’s experiences in the upcoming book Tested: How Twelve Wrongfully Imprisoned Men Held onto Hope, to be published this October by Brown Books Publishing Group.
Looking outside Texas' borders for just a moment, let me point out a couple of notable stories from other states on the usually sleepy subject of community supervision.
An investigative report from the Boston Globe on the Massachusetts probation department found cronyism in hiring, dramatically inflated caseloads aimed at boosting state allocations, and a GPS monitoring program that was expensive and failed at most of its fundamental goals. Their risk assessment instrument labels 2/3 of defendants as "maximum" threats, far above the rates found elsewhere. An independent counsel has been appointed to investigate a situation that sounds like a complete clusterf&%k..
I should reference this notable Economist piece on US incarceration policies, "Too many laws, too many prisoners: Never in the civilised world have so many been locked up for so little," which touches on many themes common to this blog. Here's a taste:
Justice is harsher in America than in any other rich country. Between 2.3m and 2.4m Americans are behind bars, roughly one in every 100 adults. If those on parole or probation are included, one adult in 31 is under “correctional” supervision. As a proportion of its total population, America incarcerates five times more people than Britain, nine times more than Germany and 12 times more than Japan. Overcrowding is the norm. Federal prisons house 60% more inmates than they were designed for. State lock-ups are only slightly less stuffed.
The part of the title in quotes is the headline of a San Antonio Express-News story yesterday about Bexar County Jail visitation that opens thusly:
Some days Sylvia Gomez thinks it is harder for her to get inside the Bexar County Jail to visit her son than it would be for him to break out and come to her.
It's not the strict dress code, invasive security measures or even the agitated and sometimes unruly residents of the imposing red-brick fortress.
For Gomez, 62, and thousands of other visitors, the obstacle is far more mundane: marathon waits in long lines in the summer sun.Apparently there's a dispute regarding whether all the visitors possible are let inside to wait for visitation hours:
