State will inspect ‘high-risk’ jails, likely including Bexar County, more frequently

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards, tasked with setting and enforcing minimum standards of construction, maintenance and operation to keep county jails safe is changing its inspection process to check in on some jails more — and others less. Rather than inspecting every county jail every year — there are 240 — the agency, which currently only has 23 full-time employees, is moving to a “risk-based approach,” meaning it will inspect jails the commission deems “high-risk” between one and three times a year. The rest will be inspected every two years. While the tool to identify high-risk jails is still being developed, the Bexar County Adult Detention Center will likely be deemed high-risk, said Brandon Wood, executive director of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Risk will be based on things like compliance history, in-custody deaths, escapes and complaints, he said.

Jail inspections were near the center of a recent dispute about the condition of locks inside Bexar County’s jail. While the state commission has found the jail to be in compliance with its standards since late 2019, Bexar County Sheriff deputy union officials say the commission’s inspections during that time period didn’t catch many maintenance issues, including broken locks. The planned changes to the inspection process, slated to take effect by September 2023, are the result of recommendations from the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission, which reviews state agencies every 12 years to see if they need to adjust operations, or if they’re even necessary anymore. The sunset commission found a clear need for the Commission on Jail Standards to exist, but the June 2021 report “identified areas in which the agency has not kept pace with dynamic jail environments,” resulting in the massive retooling of administrative procedures. The recommendations and subsequent legislation didn’t come with more funding for the commission, which has had a largely flat budget for years. That’s led to higher workloads and staff turnover even at the same time that jail inmate populations have increased, according to Wood, who has worked for the commission since 1999 and led it since 2012.