The Angelina County jail, in Lufkin, Texas, has failed a Texas State inspection. The inspection occurred on May 28 and 29, 2020, and it was done by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS).
The TCJS inspector noted that the jail failed based on two violated standards. First, a Texas minimum jail standard is that documented observations of an inmate shall be conducted every fifteen minutes, at a minimum, when an inmate is in restraints. Typically, this refers to a restraint chair. The TCJS inspector noted, during his inspection, and after reviewing video evidence, jail staff exceeded restraint observations from as little as one minute by as many as ten minutes. This was also a problem observed by a TCJS inspector at the 2019 annual inspection.
Further, the Angelina County jail violated the standard that requires every county jail facility in Texas to have an appropriate number of jailers at the facility 24 hours each day, and that each such jail have an established procedure for documented, face-to-face observations of all inmates by jailers no less than once every hour. The TCJS inspector noted, during the inspection and after reviewing video evidence, that jail staff exceeded this 60-minute observation by as little as one minute but by, amazingly, as much as 294 minutes.
A jail’s failure to properly observe inmates can lead to serious injury and/or death. If an inmate needs emergency medical treatment, and jailers are failing to conduct appropriate observations, then an inmate can die in a cell. In fact, our Texas constitutional rights law firm has seen cases in which that has occurred. Moreover, if a suicidal inmate is not properly observed, and the inmate is left with things with which the inmate can commit suicide, then a suicide can clearly occur.
