On October 21, 2020, Norma Barrera Avila informed the Reeves County Sheriff’s Office that she had last consumed heroin on the day prior. She was placed in a holding tank in Reeves County Jail in Pecos, Texas. Although housed where observations are frequent, she was discovered nonresponsive after a few hours and died about nine hours after her arrival at the jail.

Like county jails across the nation, Texas jails are forced to deal with addicted inmates. Statistics show that more than half of jail inmates have an addiction problem. Many jails have turned to medication-assisted treatment (MAT). These treatments help inmates to detox safely from opioids. There is also evidence that they help individuals stay clean after release as well as while they are incarcerated.

 A big concern with MAT is the potential abuse of the treatment drugs. There are also worries about the cost and efficacy of such programs, which jails were not built or designed for. Jails are not built for drug addiction treatment but that is what they have become due to widespread addiction.

One study found that inmates in a state outside of Texas had a 40% chance of overdosing after detoxing in a jail and then being released. Opioid addiction programs stretch far beyond the budgetary limits of most county jails, but there is no denying that they can help save lives.

This site does not intend to imply that persons or institutions have been participants in wrongdoing. The goal of this website is to help inmates currently and previously detained in county jails in Texas.

–Guest Contributor