Heather Rodriguez was found in an unresponsive state in her cell at Kerr County Jail in Kerrville, Texas, on March 16, 2021. She died that same night, and she was only 45 years old. Few details were provided, though the custodial death report stated that she suffered from brain hypoxia, which indicates an oxygen deficiency in the brain.

Texas recently had a one-year period in which Texas prisoners died at a rate 22% higher than the national average when looking at the previous 13 years. The watchdog group exposing this and more troubling information suggested that oversight is insufficient in county Texas jails. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) is in charge of oversight. During the year when the above-cited jail death rate occurred, there was only a 7.5% non-compliance rate among the 280 county Texas jails, according to TCJS.

Only four inspectors are with TCJS, yet they are responsible to ensure compliance related to the following issues in 240 jails annually:

• Access to medical, mental, and dental health services
• Maintenance
• Building conditions
• Paperwork
• Procedures
• Suicide prevention protocols
• Staffing
• Fire safety

A person involved in a Texas justice watchdog group points out that TCJS is a regulatory commission that was not intended to also serve as an oversight committee. The 80 inmate deaths that constituted a death rate at 22% higher than the national average occurred in the same year in which TCJS inspectors found that none of the jails where the deaths happened were at fault.

See Part 1 and Part 2 of this three-part series.

This website provides posts to serve as potential informational resources for current and past county inmates in Texas jails. There is not an intention to denote on this site that misdeeds have occurred on the part of persons or entities.

–Guest Contributor