Castro County, Texas Jail Fails State Inspection – Listed as Non-Compliant

The Castro County jail failed a November 23, 2020 inspection conducted by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (“TCJS”). The Castro County jail is located in Dimmitt, Texas.

The TCJS inspector determined that the Castro County jail violated two minimum standards. Every Texas jail is required to have a fire prevention plan, and to be inspected annually by a local fire official. The Castro County jail failed to meet this standard, and the inspector noted that the last Fire Marshal inspection was conducted in March 2019. Thus, the Castro County jail was seven months overdue on the inspection.

A second minimum standard which the jail violated is a serious standard, as it relates to inmate safety, based upon our law firm’s litigation of a number of jail death cases across Texas. A minimum jail standard requires that inmates confined in a holding cell or detoxification cell must be observed by jail personnel at intervals not to exceed thirty minutes. However, at the Castro County jail, the thirty-minute face-to-face observations in holding and detoxification cells continuously exceeded the thirty-minute standard by as little as ten minutes and by as much as thirty minutes. While we do not have any information that anyone at the Castro County jail suffered injury or death as a result, failing to properly observe inmates is what leads to injury and/or death.

We frequently find that when inmates are not watched periodically, or continuously if necessary (such as an inmate on suicide watch), inmate safety is at risk. If an inmate dies or suffers serious injury as a result of deliberate indifference and/or objective unreasonableness of jailers, then jailers can be liable for damages in a subsequent lawsuit.

Written By: Dean Malone

Dean Malone

Dean Malone is the founder of Law Offices of Dean Malone, P.C., a jail neglect civil rights law firm. Mr. Malone earned his bachelor's degree at the University of Texas at Dallas, graduating summa cum laude with a 4.0 GPA, and from Baylor University School of Law with a general civil litigation concentration. Mr. Malone served in several staff positions for the Baylor Law Review, including executive editor. Mr. Malone is an experienced trial lawyer, trying a number of cases to jury verdict and also handling arbitrations through final hearing. He heads the jail neglect section of his law firm, in which lawyers litigate cases involving serious injury and death resulting from jail neglect and abuse. Lawyers frequently refer cases to Mr. Malone due to his focus on this very complicated civil rights practice area.