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.