Taylor County, Texas Jail Fails State Inspection

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards, on or about March 14, 2019, inspected the Taylor County, Texas jail. The jail is located in Abilene. The Taylor County, Texas jail failed the inspection and is now listed by TCJS as a non-compliant jail.

TCJS standards require that every Texas county jail have an appropriate number of jailers at the jail, 24 hours each day. Moreover, those standards require that jailers observe inmates who are known to be assaultive, potentially suicidal, mentally ill, or who demonstrate bizarre behavior at least every 30 minutes.

Information received and documented by TCJS revealed that 30-minute face-to-face observations were completed. However, when comparing that against video evidence, the video evidence proved that on two occasions, such observations were not conducted as indicated in the written documents. Clearly, Texas jailers should not be documenting observations of prisoners when in fact no such observations occurred.

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.