“We are pleased to have received notification of our compliance last Friday,” said Dallas County Sheriff Marian Brown at a meeting on Tuesday. “So we are excited about that.”
Last month the jail underwent a “limited compliance review.” Rather than a full inspection with state employees on the ground, county employees sent records to Austin. The state agency overseeing jail conditions, the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS), confirmed that Dallas passed with no areas of non-compliance.
The full report is not available until later this month.
Dallas County’s jail failed in-person inspections in 2021 and 2022. TCJS cited it for broken doors and insufficient documentation of checks of inmates on suicide watch, among other things. The jail regained compliance after follow-up visits.
Limited reviews
Here’s what’s included within the scope of a limited compliance review, according to Brandon Wood, the TCJS executive director:
- Classification records
- Staffing rosters
- Life safety training records
- Equipment certifications, such as fire alarm control panels
- Previous inspection and compliance history
- Specific pictures as requested
Wood said this was “information which can be gathered very easily and [submitted] with an affidavit of records to demonstrate that those are true and correct.”
The limited compliance review does not examine sanitation, graffiti, or other items requiring an on-the-ground inspector.
A change to inspections
The limited reviews are a strategy for doing more with less. The state funds four inspectors at TCJS, an agency overseeing conditions in 242 county jails across Texas. It also monitors conditions at some privately-run jails.
“It doesn’t take long to burn your people out,” Wood said.
In 2021, members of the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, a body composed mostly of state lawmakers, said the jail commission no longer had to do on-site inspections each year. Rather, it should use a “risk-based approach” to focus on jails needing the most attention.
In its report, the sunset panel did not suggest more funding for TCJS. Rather, its recommendations were “intended to ensure the agency uses its limited resources more efficiently.”
Wood told KERA the commission has been “test-driving” a risk assessment tool to evaluate likelihood a jail needs a full inspection. The commission then deploys inspectors based on the jail’s risk for being out of compliance. Factors in the risk rating include a change in leadership, a reported death in custody, and the length of time since a jail’s last inspection after the 12-month mark.
Wood said every jail will get at least one full, on-site inspection every 24 months. The limited, remote reviews fill in the gaps.
“This may have just been one of those [situations] where Dallas County, they fell within a time period that the inspection matrix dictated that they receive a limited compliance review,” Wood said. “They could possibly, depending upon their ranking, receive an on-site comprehensive inspection within the next six to eight months.”
Dallas County’s inmate population hovers around 81% capacity, down from about 85% in mid-February. Meanwhile, The Dallas Morning News has reported that the county has struggled to hire people and officials worry about its aging workforce.
In a reference to Tarrant and Harris Counties, respectively, Dallas Commissioner John Wiley Price on Tuesday expressed gratitude that Dallas has so far avoided looking outside of the county for inmate housing.
"Unlike some of our peer counties ... we have not had to expend $18 million to send our custody elsewhere,” Price said. “Like one of our peer counties, we have not had to spend $23 million … to send our custody elsewhere.”
Got a tip? Email Bret Jaspers at bjaspers@kera.org. You can follow Bret on Twitter @bretjaspers.
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