Complaints about municipal and county jails are submitted to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), the entity responsible for establishing operational guidelines. Year after year, TCJS has listed “inmate health care” as the topic it receives the most complaints about.

Periodically, TCJS reviews jail policies for the purpose of making improvements. For example, TCJS conducted a Mental Health Study in response to a directive of the Texas Legislature in 2004. The following were primary areas a sub-committee identified and that TCJS was to focus on:

• Improve the process of mental health screening in Texas county and municipal jails. Include a review of instruments used for intake screening and cross-referencing procedures for the Case Assignment and Registration (CARE) system.
• Determine how the level of access to psychiatric and/or medical information available to the jails from other public sources might be improved.
• Make improvements in the reliability of the mental health screening process during intake the ultimate goal while examining the status of the working relationship between the public mental health system and local Texas jails.
• Review best practices in operation in county and city jails across Texas with the goals of improving timely identification of mental health needs and ensuring continuity of care.
• Make a comparison between the public mental health system and the existing level of pre- and post-release linkages for inmates who received psychiatric treatment from private providers while in jail.
• Determine ways to improve the overall adherence to statutory mandates regarding psychological and psychiatric evaluations conducted within 72 hours of detention or pretrial release.

Learn more in Part 1 and this ongoing series.

Providing helpful resources that could benefit municipal and county jail prisoners in Texas, whether an inmate is currently or was previously detained, is this site’s purpose. On this website, accusing people or institutions of wrongdoing is never an intention.

–Guest Contributor