Winkler County, Texas Jail Fails State Inspection

The Winkler County Jail, known as the Winkler County Detention Center, in Kermit, Texas, is now listed as being non-compliant with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards conducted an inspection of the jail on December 10, 2021. The inspector found, from our perspective, a serious violation.

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards sets forth minimum jail standards for Texas county jails. The Winkler County Jail, according to the Texas Commission on Jail Standards inspector, did not conduct training for 12 of its 16 jailers during calendar year 2021. This was particularly troubling, because suicide prevention training was an item of technical assistance during the year 2020 annual inspection. Training was last completed for those 12 jailers in November 2020.

A minimum jail standard in Texas requires each sheriff or jail operator to develop and implement a mental disability/suicide prevention plan in coordination with available medical and mental health officials. The plan shall address certain principles and procedures, including having provisions for staff training. This training must be on procedures for recognition, documentation, supervision, and handling of inmates who are mentally disabled and/or potentially suicidal.

Hopefully, Winkler County’s failure to train its jailers did not lead to any serious injury or death. Our Texas civil rights law firm frequently sues counties as a result of occurrences in their jails. Unfortunately, many such occurrences conclude in death. There are still far too many suicides occurring in Texas county jails. We also far too frequently see denial of medical care or provision of medical care that is so inadequate as to really constitute denial.

If a person dies in a Texas county jail as a result of neglect, indifference, and/or clearly unreasonable policies, practices, and/or customs, then certain surviving family members may be able to file a lawsuit. These lawsuits against Texas jails are usually filed in federal court, because guarantees to Texas prisoners are pursuant to the United States Constitution.

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.