- Harris County Jail Can Be Deadly. The Houston Chronicle reports that 101 people have died in the Harris County Jail in the past six years.
- Nuther TYC Scandal. At the Texas Observer, Nate Blakeslee tells about yet more allegations of abuse at a Texas Youth Commission facility.
- Incompetent Detention Policy. The SA Express News localizes the the story of Bexar County jail inmates who've been declared mentally incompetent but who wait for months in jail to receive "competency restoration." The Lufkin Daiy News editorialized that the state needs to fix the problem.
- DPS Crime Lab Corruption. A scientist stole kilos of cocaine over two years from a DPS crime lab after it had been tested. No wonder defense attorneys want to hire independent experts.
- Exonerated. The Austin Statesman has an extensive story on Kerry Max Cook, who was famously exonerated from Texas death row because of extreme prosecutorial misconduct in my hometown of Tyler.
- Meth Markets. US laws banning meth precursor ingredients have not only boosted Mexican meth production, but also the number of Mexican meth addicts.
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1 comment:
On the deaths in jail: There's no excuse for the guards ignoring an obvious medical crisis, but is the death rate anything unusual? That's about 17 deaths a year, from a population that sometimes tops 9,000, or about 2 deaths per 1,000 inmates per year. If that was a random sample of the population, we'd all have a life expectancy of 500 years.
Of course, it isn't a random sample. These are mostly young people, who have a much lower death rate in general. OTOH, they are mostly criminals, who tend not to take good care of themselves and to frequently engage in quite risky behavior. So I've got no idea if they're more or less likely to die while jailed than when they're free.
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