Harrison County, Texas Jail Fails State Inspection
The Harrison County jail, in Marshall, Texas, failed an inspection by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (“TCJS”). The inspection occurred over two days in December, 2020. The Harrison County jail is not listed as being non-compliant.
The TCJS inspector noted, after reviewing medication administration records, that the jail failed to show that medications were being distributed to inmates in accordance with written instructions from a physician. Further, the TCJS inspector learned, when reviewing inmate medical records, that medication for an inmate was stopped after seven days even though the medication had been prescribed for ten days by a physician.
In addition to medication problems, the TCJS inspector noted that the Harrison County jail had restraint chair logs indicating that staff exceeded the required 15-minute observation by as little as one minute by up to 22 minutes on multiple occasions. Shockingly, the TCJS inspector learned that there was no documented face-to-face observation of inmates housed on the fourth floor of the main jail facility on the day of the inspection, and no documentation of face-to-face observations for the period of time beginning November 1, 2020 and concluding December 15, 2020.
These are serious minimum jail standards violations. It is violations like these which can lead to inmate serious injury or death.
Dean Malone
Dean Malone