On July 6, 2019, 48-year-old Michael Lowell Rodden died from hanging himself in a jail cell. Just three days before, Bowie County Jail in Texarkana, Texas, booked him as an inmate.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) provides the guidelines by which every Texas county jail must operate. The minimum jail standards include a section on suicide prevention. RULE §273.5 can be found under the chapter on health services, and it addresses procedures for identifying and handling inmates with mental disabilities as well as potentially suicidal inmates.

It is also known with growing evidence, however, that during the first days in a jail, a huge segment of the prisoner population is very much a potential suicide risk. This is true even if the jail staff member booking inmates does not notice any signs of suicidal behavior. The following are among the minimum jail standards with regard to suicide prevention plans that county Texas jails are required to operate under.

RULE §273.5 – Mental Disabilities/Suicide Prevention Plan

• Jailers must be trained on the procedures for supervising, recognizing, documenting, and handling inmates with mental disabilities or possible suicidal tendencies.
• When an inmate is identified as being potentially suicidal, they must be assigned to appropriate housing where increased supervision will be provided.

Another key portion of the minimum jail standards is under the chapter entitled “Supervision of Inmates,” and it is the following rule as regards potentially suicidal prisoners.

RULE §275.1 -Regular Observation by Jailers

• Jailers must make face-to-face observations of potentially suicidal inmates every 30 minutes at most. A new portion of the rule required every Texas county jail to make a change no later than August 31, 2020, and that change was related to personal observations where inmates are in high-risk cells or groups. Cameras or electronic sensors able to record the required personal intimate observations had to be installed by the above-mentioned date.

See Part 1 and this ongoing series to learn more.

This website provides posts for the purpose of helping inmates that are or have been housed in a county Texas jail. There is never an intent on this website to infer wrongdoing on persons or institutions.

–Guest Contributor