Taylor County Jail is in Abilene, Texas 79602 at 910 S 27th Street. The jail has an inmate capacity of 874, and the contact phone number is (915) 691-7422. The Taylor County Sheriff is in charge of operations at Taylor County Jail. The minimum jail standards that every Texas jail must adhere to are established by The Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS). The Commission has inspectors, and they inspect every county jail in Texas annually. Non-compliant jails come under heightened scrutiny, including additional inspections, until they have come up to code.

Restraint Chairs

TCJS has approved a range of restraint devices for use on inmates at immediate risk of hurting themselves or others. The devices with the least amount of restriction appropriate to the situation must be chosen. When all other efforts to contain inmates in this type of volatile situation have failed, restraint chairs can be used in Texas.

Restraint chairs are controversial and, in fact, have been outlawed in different jurisdictions throughout the US. Watchdog groups have exposed the restraint chair as a device named as a contributing cause of many custodial deaths. Numerous inmates that have been in county jails have spoken up about jailer abuses connected to the restraint chair. For instance, inmates are sometimes denied the required opportunities to be released temporarily in order to move their arms and legs and to use the restroom.

Jailers in some U.S. county jails have taken advantage of the vulnerability of inmates strapped into these restraint chairs by doing things such as spraying them with pepper spray and then putting a spit shield over their face. Required personal observations of inmates in restraint chairs are frequently neglected, which puts the prisoners at greater risk of suffering physical harm.

The posts on this website are provided as potentially helpful resources for Texas inmates currently or formerly housed in county jails. It is never intended to denote that individuals or institutions have been involved in improprieties. 

–Guest Contributor