Texas prison baseball league was shockingly well-developed

While I've been away from the blog recently, much of my time has been spent on a side project researching negro-league baseball in Texas, exhuming the Austin Black Senators' history from the fog of segregation and media bias. But in Texas, everything comes back to the justice system, and baseball historian Bill Staples, Jr. schooled me today on an aspect of the Texas prison system I never knew about: It used to have its own baseball league! Every unit fielded teams which played in an annual, 14-week pennant race. 

Baseball leagues 70 years ago were referred to as "loops," and according to this fascinating 1950 assessment of Texas prison recreation programs, the Texas prison "loop [was] divided into two divisions. Units situated south of the United States Highway 90A play in the southern division, and those north of the highway comprise the northern division."

Team names were as follows. In the southern division: Ramsey 1 Hardhitters; Ramsey 2 Monarchs; Darrington Devils; Retrieve Snippers; Ramsey Builders; and the Clemens Cats (aka "Panthers"). The northern division consisted of the Eastham Buffs; Wynne Cobblers; Walls Tigers; Walls Black Tigers; Central 2 Cubs; and the Harlem 1 Red Socks. N.b. that the Walls Unit had segregated squads.

Occasionally, perhaps ringers would come on the scene when some professional athlete would get into trouble. 

Teams played a series with each other team in the division, and the two with the highest winning percentages were declared pennant winners, earning them the right to face off against each other in an end-of-season, 3-game championship series. Sometimes, papers would even publish box scores of the games.

Among the league rules: "an escape by any member of a baseball group during the season of the sport can bring suspension of the entire ball club for the remaining season."

It appears prison baseball existed in Texas even earlier, but the league/pennant format was created in 1949. Staples found reference to the Walls Tigers Cyclones* from 1930. In the first half of the twentieth century, prison baseball appears fairly widespread. In Wyoming, even death row inmates played on baseball teams.

At the Texas Prison Museum, according to Texas Highways magazine, there is:

a large display case with baseball uniforms, team photographs, and game programs from the prison baseball team, the Huntsville Prison Tigers. Prison officials organized the team and built a ballpark in 1924. The team played area semi-pro teams until they disbanded in 1943, a casualty of budget-tightening during World War II.

We know they didn't disband permanently in 1943 because teams were still active in 1950, but the construction of a prison ballpark in 1924 likely marks the beginning of the program. Corroborating this timing, on Feb. 24, 1924, the Fort Worth Star-Telegram ran a short item titled, "Prisoners seek equipment for baseball team," declaring the  Ferguson State prison farm at Midway "has a group of good ball players and will organize a team if the equipment is forthcoming." Donations sought included "Gloves, a catcher's mitt, mask, [and] baseballs," adding that, "When the team is organized it will play amateur and semipro teams in the vicinity of Midway."

According to the 1950-prison-rec-program assessment,  wardens could approve exhibition games on Sundays in addition to league-scheduled contests. Some of these were played before free-world crowds. This flyer from 1942 advertised a baseball game between prison-system all stars and the Southern Select, an "All Mexican Team From Houston." Admission was 25 cents and included entertainment by the "Prison Military Band."

In general, recreational activities seemed more widespread and salutary than TDCJ supports now:

The major activities, which are open to all inmates of good behavior, include competitive sports, such as baseball, volleyball, boxing, tennis, and softball; individual physical activities, such as horseshoe pitching and washer pitching; social games, such as checkers, cards, and dominoes; recreational reading; an annual rodeo; musical activities, including; a weekly radio broadcast; crafts; and motion pictures.

The prison rodeo, begun in 1931, funded a portion of the recreation budget, likely including the baseball league. 

In 1934, prisoners tried to stage an escape while staff were distracted by a game between the Humble Oilers and the Walls Tigers:

The inmates were leading 5-1 in the 9th inning when all hell broke loose. Suddenly and without warning, gunfire came from the over the walls of the prison. It sounded like a war had begun. Guards yelled and threatened the convicts to hit the ground. All inmates went belly down immediately. But in the stands it was pandaemonium. Everyone there scattered wildly in all directions away from the Walls.

There's an entire, book-length account of this escape attempt, which did not involve any of the baseball players.

Given the success of the baseball league competitions, which were the most popular sport among inmates at the time, a suggestion was floated that, "Inter-unit boxing tournaments might be staged," though it's not clear that ever happened. On the other hand, I'd never have imagined teams from Texas prison units played in a baseball league and staged and annual pennant race, so who knows? 

These days, Texas prisons are so understaffed, prisoners are lucky if they get an hour in the rec yard: during COVID lockdowns, they often didn't even get that. They're not playing tennis, much less traveling the state to play baseball in front of paying, free-world crowds.

Still, it's also not like Texas was spending lavishly on prisoners in 1950. From the same report:

Texas taxpayers are getting off very lightly in the operation of the prison. Only two states in the Union spend less per man: Mississippi and Alabama. Texas spends about $310 per year per inmate. Many states spend more than $1,000 per man, while Connecticut tops the list with $1,468 spent on each prisoner in custody.

It's often said that budgets are values documents, and that applies here: Texas wasn't spending much on prisoners, but of what they spent, the state clearly prioritized recreation activities and prisoner well being more than today. The MLB Hall of Fame has a web page on "Baseball Behind Bars" describing early teams at Sing Sing in New York, and its conclusion sums up the values that might prioritize spending tax dollars to create sports leagues for prisoners:

It might be easier to write off all of this coverage of prison baseball as media exploitation, but there is something to be said for the real, positive difference baseball made in the lives of the inmates who played on teams and in leagues while they served out their sentences. The Sing Sing baseball program received praise for the “spiritual change in the men” from the likes of Dr. Katharine B. Davis, the Commissioner of Correction of New York City in 1915. Baseball might be “just a game,” but as any fan knows, it is also one of the things that makes life enjoyable.

*Staples informs me the reference to the prison team he found from 1930 was the Walls "Cyclones," but by 1934, the Tigers were competing. It's possible there were already multiple teams by that time, or that the name changed at some point.

On the Myth of Prison Closures Generating Cost Savings: How TDCJ can ↓ prisoners by 20% and still see costs rise nine figures per biennium

From the earliest days your correspondent first showed up at the Texas Legislature, I've been grumpy about how they score "fiscal notes" related to bills increasing incarceration. Dr. Tony Fabelo and I used to go round about this when he led the Criminal Justice Policy Council.

Bills that increase incarceration are deemed to have no significant cost, even though every additional prisoner requires supervision, food, healthcare, etc.. And bills that decrease incarceration weren't deemed to generate budget reductions on the grounds that no real money was saved unless the state closed prison units and could save money on guard salaries.

So, for years, bills increasing incarceration were treated in the state budget as freebies while bills reducing incarceration received no credit from budget writers. 

Then, in 2013, Texas finally broke through and reduced incarceration enough to begin closing units. Since that time we've closed about a dozen of them. And yet, every session, TDCJ's budget goes up and up.

It turned out to be a myth that closing prison units would reduce the budget. Frankly, your correspondent is as surprised as anyone, though with 20/20 hindsight it's easy to see why.

Texas has reduced its prison population by about 20 percent, but most of that reduction has come among prisoners with shorter sentences. Meanwhile, the big cost drivers at TDCJ are 1) healthcare for elderly prisoners and 2) deferred maintenance on old units.

So, even with the lowest prisoner population in the 21st century and a dozen units shuttered, TDCJ's latest budget includes huge, nine-figure increases:

Turns out, elderly prisoner's healthcare costs and deferred maintenance are bottomless pits and reducing prisoner numbers hasn't slowed them down much at all. Whenever costs are reduced from prison closures, there's a massive backlog of expenses they want to spend that money on, so the budget never goes down. Prison closures could theoretically be targeted to units with the highest maintenance costs. But there are other factors like terrific staffing shortages at certain rural units that also drive closure decisions.

It's now clear TDCJ's budget growth can't be contained without reducing incarceration among the cohort with the longest sentences. The Life Without Parole cohort has exploded since 2005, and thousands more prisoners in their senior years face decades-long sentences that could conceivably keep them there until their deaths.

Many Texans might think that's okay for murderers, sex offenders, and others with especially long sentences. But those cohorts also have among the lowest recidivism rates among releasees (they've typically long-ago aged out of crime, and most murders are one-offs). And here's the catch: Medicare doesn't pay for prisoner healthcare, so if Texas chooses to keep them incarcerated, it must pay 100% of costs for long-term and ultimately end-of-life care. 

That said, this is a surmountable problem using mechanisms available under current law. With the exception of those with LWOP sentences (who're mostly not elderly yet, anyway, though they'll contribute to the problem soon enough), some 60 percent of TDCJ prisoners are eligible to be paroled immediately. Indeed, some 15,000 of them have already been approved for release but remain incarcerated because TDCJ only provides treatment services post-approval. Legislation to move the treatment timeline up passed the Texas House but the Lt. Governor as of this writing has refused to refer the bill to committee.

So for the time being, expect Texas prison costs to keep ballooning: Looking at the bills still moving in the waning days of the 87th Legislature, the state doesn't appear poised to change any of the dynamics causing it.

For cruelty's sake: Texas prisons lose money every year to keep prisoners picking cotton, other field crops

Texas ended "convict leasing" - essentially hiring out prisoners as slave labor - just more than a century ago, but the prison system's Agricultural Division never really stopped so much as they brought the practice in house.

TDCJ officials have testified under oath that having prisoners pick cotton in the summer heat is "essential" to the agency's operations. But we learned recently the agency is actually paying for the privilege of doing so. It'd be cheaper to buy it on the open market.

Over the last five years, according to a recently released state audit, the agency lost money every year on cotton and other non-edible field crops, spending $6.83 million more over five years than they'd have paid to simply purchase the products.

At least one year, losses had been attributed to Hurricane Harvey. But it turns out, it's an ongoing problem in the same way the agency's food canning operation has been losing money.

Overall, 46% of products produced by TDCJ would have cost less if purchased on the open market.

It's worth mentioning, Texas is one of only three states where prisoners are paid nothing for their work, so we're essentially saying TDCJ can't turn a profit on these operations using slave labor.

If you can't make a profit with no labor costs, maybe you're not very good at business, or at least are in the wrong one. Perhaps the field-crop program just isn't such a great idea? 

By contrast, the agency's beef, pork and livestock programs earn significant profits, and the value of edible crops was much lower but at least greater than the cost of growing them.

Even so, profit shouldn't be the biggest concern and arguably prioritizing it is a holdover from the convict-leasing era. A few years ago, Ohio closed all its prison farms on the grounds that it made no sense to train prisoners for agricultural jobs when that's not the type of work most enter upon release.

Certainly that's true in Texas, too. Texas prisons aren't operating their Ag program because that's the best way to prepare prisoners for reentry. They're operating it out of inertia, because they've always done so, whether it makes penological, much less financial sense, or not. And maybe also, just for cruelty's sake.

BONUS: Check out [Cotton Picking Time in] Tulia, TX, a tune about TDCJ field workers written by my pal Jeff Frazier back in the day and sung by the great Malford Milligan.

On Class C arrests and a "duty to intervene," James White on "colonizing" Austin PD, and Anthony Graves on how bad prison food ruins prisoners' health: Part One of Special Podcast on #TexasGeorgeFloydAct

The Reasonably Suspicious podcast is back after a largely health-driven hiatus. Mandy and I are diving back in with Part One of a special, two-part episode on the Texas George Floyd Act, HB 88 by state Rep. Senfronia Thompson. The episode features new, original music created for radio ads and online promotion of the George Floyd Act, as well as interviews with Rep. Thompson, Homeland Security and Public Safety Committee Chair James White, and exoneree Anthony Graves, who came on to talk to us about the TDCJ prison budget. We also discuss the existence of "Schrodinger's Defendant," comparable to "Schrodinger's Cat": A concept I think may evolve into a more robust critique going forward. 

The first half hour of the show takes a deep dive into the issue of Class C misdemeanor arrests, using the case of Dillon Puente out of Keller, Texas to spotlight the problem. Dillon was arrested for a wide right turn, but really so police could search his car. (Spoiler: The search found nothing, but before they were finished they'd arrested him and pepper sprayed his Dad.) We also spoke to James White about a case out of Plano where a young black man on his way home from Walmart was arrested during the recent Snowpocalypse. 

Chairman White, whose committee oversees the Texas Department of Public Safety, also took a moment to discuss Gov. Greg Abbott's suggestion that DPS "colonize" the Austin Police Department, in his words. Austin folks will want to hear this.(35:58)

Finally, exoneree Anthony Graves, who spent 18 years incarcerated in Texas prisons before being proven actually innocent, spoke with us about the need for the Legislature to boost funding for prison food and treatment that helps prisoners reenter society. (41:55)

Find a transcript below the jump. Enjoy!

Boost Texas prisoner food budgets 39 cents per prisoner/day

If your annual food budget was $800 per person and that money had to last all year, how would you spend it?

I'll give you a moment: Try to imagine what that would look like.

Having recently spent >$250 at my big, post-SNOVID trip to HEB, Grits can hardly fathom eating for a year on that amount. But that's the dilemma facing cafeteria cooks and nutritionists at TDCJ, where prisoners have been receiving food during COVID more suitable for pig slop than human consumption.

This is what Texas feeds prisoners
on an $800/year food budget

That said, in Texas prisons the pigs are air conditioned while the prisoners and guards are not, so it's likely the pigs eat better than this.

With the Texas Department of Criminal Justice poised to realize nine figures in budget saving thanks to newly closed prison units, the Legislative Budget Board had suggested the agency reduce its budget by $148 million and send that money back to the General Revenue pot. The group I lead, Just Liberty, is requesting they spend that money instead on two items: 1) Expanded treatment funding to move paroled prisoners out of lockups sooner, and 2) increasing prisoner food budgets by $17 million per year.

We discussed the treatment funding in the last post; let's delve deeper into TDCJ food budgets.

Food spending at TDCJ peaked at $106,601,431 paying for food for 155,076 inmates as of 8/31/09. That comes out to $687.41 per inmate spent on groceries in 2009, if you can imagine! 

If that amount had risen with inflation, food spending at TDCJ would currently be at $854.51 per prisoner.

Today, Texas incarcerates fewer people than we did back then - 119,541 as of January 2021 -  but only spends ~$810.56 per prisoner on food.*

Just Liberty is recommending boosting the food budget by 39 cents per day, per prisoner. That comes out to $17 million per year total, or roughly $952.77 per inmate. That's still an insanely small sum to eat on for a year, but it should give the agency enough leeway to improve prisoners' fare.

A final note: We only know how bad prison food is thanks to photos sent to reporters from contraband cell phones. Staff portray cell phones as dangerous contraband, but IRL they're the most important innovation in carceral accountability we've witnessed in the 21st century. Similar to bystander video of police brutality, cell phones in prisons have documented treatment long-alleged but difficult to prove.

Now, thanks to documented, firsthand examples across many units, we know complaints about Texas prison food aren't just whining from criminals: No one would feed this slop to anyone related to them.

With only a few exceptions, most Texas legislators consider themselves Christians. Well, this is one of those moments implicated in Matthew 25:40, wherein the disciples protested that they'd never visited Jesus in prison or fed him when he was hungry, as he'd described. Christ replied that, "whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me." Grits wants to ask state budget writers directly how they'd answer that question at the Pearly Gates: Is 39 cents per day too much to ask for the "least of these"?

Texas doesn't pay prisoners for their labor and, thanks to widespread guard understaffing, the truth is at this point they're largely who's keeping the prisons running. A decent meal isn't too much to ask.

For Keri Blakinger and thousands of hungry Texas prisoners.

*Prison populations have been dropping during COVID; when they budgeted for this fiscal year, the Legislature had been told to expect a much higher prison population, so these per-prisoner numbers look much better than they could have.

#Txlege should use savings from closed prison units to fund needed treatment services

The Texas Legislative Budge Board has "Recommended funding maintains correctional security operations, with a decrease totaling $148 million, primarily related to recent facility closures and 2020–21 repair/renovation projects."

Grits is glad for more prison closures, but it's a mistake simply to reduce the budget by the amount of those units' costs. TDCJ has significant unfilled needs that those savings should pay for. 

One of the biggest: The agency doesn't fund treatment service sufficiently so that thousands of people are approved for parole but must remain in prison until they complete any required treatment. TDCJ doesn't enroll them in treatment until after they're approved for parole.

At any given time, there are around 15,000 people in TDCJ who've already been paroled but can't be released until they've completed treatment. If TDCJ paid for treatment BEFORE people were approved for parole, when they're approved they could leave prison immediately. This would further reduce the prison population and allow even more units to be closed, resulting in even more savings down the line.

The $148 million savings projected would go a long way toward solving this issue, resulting in less incarceration and greater savings down the line. From a management perspective, it should be a no-brainer.

UPDATE: Just Liberty is walking around at the capitol promoting the idea of shifting money to fund these treatment services and to spend a little more on the prisoner food budget, which has been slashed in recent years. Here's the flyer we're distributing.

Understaffing at Texas prisons reaching dangerous levels: #txlege must close, consolidate units

Whether due to COVID or some other reason(s), vacancies among prison staff at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice have reached disturbing levels, according to this report from the agency. Thanks to Keri Blakinger of the Marshall Project for passing it along. 

Regular Grits readers know TDCJ has chronically short staffed several units in recent years, but the number with serious shortages is higher than any time during the two decades your correspondent has been tracking the agency. 

In the past, when correctional officer (CO) vacancies would approach the ~4,000 mark, agency leaders began talking about a crisis. Today, vacancies are up to 5,500 systemwide, with 14 units reporting more than 40 percent of positions unfilled. If the press and public weren't distracted by eighty 9/11s worth of COVID deaths, this would be headline news.

The only saving grace: TDCJ has seen prisoner levels plummet this year to 21st century lows. But unless the agency closes more units and consolidates staff, that won't solve the understaffing problem.

We still don't fully understand the cause of the prisoner drop at TDCJ and whether it should be viewed as sustainable. For a while, TDCJ stopped taking prisoners from county jails. But those backlogs have been eliminated. Blakinger hypothesized that a reduction in parole revocations might explain it, but the numbers didn't bear it out.

Another hypothesis: Court systems slowed and fewer trials meant fewer plea bargains, meaning it's possible many more cases are awaiting adjudication than normal. Whether that means there will be a surge in admissions at some point in the future is anybody's guess.

Alternatively: Radical crime drops were reported this spring and, even though murder rates have reportedly increased over the summer, many types of crime may have continued to be dampened by the pandemic, including some lesser violent offenses. Or, the change may result from police enforcement patterns: Perhaps they're not performing as many hand-to-hand drug sales, for example, or maybe it relates to the reduction in public contacts at traffic stops thanks to reduced traffic? Perhaps police are initiating contacts with the public less frequently because of the virus. Who knows? It's been a crazy weird, year.

In a red-ink budget year, now's the time for the Texas Legislature to double down on these successes and close another half dozen prison units. (The state has closed 11 since 2013.)

As insurance against the possibility that prison populations might go back up, it'd be best if they combined such cuts with additional decarceral policies: One that comes to mind as low hanging fruit might be to eliminate testing for marijuana for probationers and parolees. In the wake of Texas' hemp statute, arrests for pot possession have fallen sharply statewide. Few people think marijuana use justifies imprisonment (possession of small amounts is only a misdemeanor), so there's no good argument that people under supervision should go to prison for it. Probation and parole revocations are a significant portion of TDCJ admissions, and even a marginal reduction in those categories would help sustain these lower prisoner levels.

Make Grits Philosopher King and there's much more that could be done. But it's perhaps far-fetched to imagine Texas will see significant criminal-penalty reductions in 2021. Already, dozens of new crimes and penalty increases have been filed as bills at the Texas Legislature. And #cjreform efforts at the Lege completely stalled out in 2019. Certainly, Grits sees little prospect for drug-penalty reductions like we've seen in Oklahoma, Utah, Oregon, and other states. And the Lege seems to have abandoned efforts to rein in technical probation revocations. Except for a handful of policing bills (e.g., the Sandra-Bland statute on Class C arrests and the George Floyd Act), and maybe some of debtors-prison stuff, not much #cjreform legislation enters the 86th session with significant momentum.

Regardless, at this point, it's not an exaggeration to say Texas prisons are dangerously understaffed and nothing the agency has done for the past decade has caused staffing shortages to abate. Moreover, COVID makes prisons an even less inviting and more dangerous workplace (certainly the virus is a greater risk to CO's lives, by far, than prisoner violence).

Closing several more units - ideally targeting remote, rural units which are hardest to keep staffed - really is the only rational management move here, and it should have been done long ago. Past prison closures failed to take into account staffing shortages, closing well-staffed units and leaving these rural outliers to fester. Now, those poor decisions are coming home to roost.

TDCJ savings from prisoner reductions significant, but probably not $1 million per day

Recent incarceration reductions are saving the Texas Department of Criminal Justice $1 million per day, according to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition's Doug Smith in testimony to the Texas House Appropriations Committee. But that figure seems high to me.

In the footnotes, Smith informs us that, "Monthly commitments to TDCJ declined by more than 16,000 during the period between March and August 2020 compared to the six-month period prior to the COVID-19 emergency declaration." Assuming each inmate costs $62.34 per day, as LBB finds in its uniform cost assessment, 16,000 fewer prisoners would indeed give you a million per day savings. 

But that's an average cost that includes overhead which won't go away just because prisoner numbers decrease. TDCJ doesn't really save much money until it actually closes units. Texas reduced juvenile incarceration numbers, for example, but didn't close large youth prison facilities. So the cost per prisoner went up. The same thing will happen at TDCJ if more prison units don't close.

I mention this only because I'd hate for Appropriations Committee members to read TCJC's testimony and think the state prison agency has extra money to give back. The agency is primed to save that much money if they close additional units, but it hasn't happened yet.

The rest of TCJC's analysis was spot on: In particular, I agree with their warning that reductions may be short-lived, including this assessment of incarceration in Texas and what it would take to avoid budget hikes in the future:

As of August 2020, there were 124,181 people incarcerated in Texas prisons,1 following a recent population drop of approximately 16,000 people; this is the result of rapidly declining crime rates, decreased felony court activity due to the COVID-19 emergency declaration, and stalled transfer of individuals committed to state prison from county jail.

While this reduction in incarceration seems promising – and is saving the state approximately $1 million per day – the numbers will likely rise again once the pandemic subsides. Currently, 891 of every 100,000 Texans is incarcerated (either in a state or federal prison, a juvenile facility, or a county jail). This rate of incarceration eclipses the national incarceration rate by 27 percent and dwarfs many other NATO member countries’ rates altogether.

Unless the system is downsized and funding is shifted toward programs known to prevent crime, including substance use recovery programs, Texas will be forced to increase funding every year for maintaining its 100+ units, many of which are more than a century old.

The group's main recommendation: "Rather than allocating additional state dollars to facility costs, we urge the committee to recommend closing aging and under-staffed facilities across the state." Hear, hear!

Speaking of closed prisons, in its own communication to legislators, TDCJ updated the Appropriations Committee on the status of the 11 prison facilities Texas has already closed: 

Over the last decade the TDCJ has experienced a decline in the offender population. Due to the declining offender population, the TDCJ has closed/idled eleven facilities. Six of these facilities have been sold through the GLO, or were privately owned and operated. The remaining five facilities are not currently being used to house offenders. The five facilities include the Bartlett State Jail, the Bradshaw State Jail, Jester I Unit, the Garza East Unit and the Ware Unit. The agency is currently working with the GLO regarding the sale of the Jester I Unit located in Sugar Land, Texas.

TDCJ's presentation included handouts with details about each of the five, shuttered properties.

Texas prison population ↓ by more in last year than most US states incarcerate

Grits mentioned before that Texas' prison population in the last few months plummeted to 21st century lows - a little more than 120K, down from the low-140s in 2019. At the time, though, one couldn't tell from the data whether this was because of people backlogged in county jails waiting to be sent to TDCJ. 

Our pal Keri Blakinger answered that question a few days ago, emailing to say: "there are just 1,600 jail inmates that are state ready and waiting to be picked up, per Jeremy [Desel, TDCJ Public Information Officer]. Which is interesting because it means that there actually IS a population decrease beyond what is explained by just the people waiting in the jails."

For context: In recent years, Texas has both received and released closer to 5,000+ prisoners per month, so Keri's right that 1,600 means they've eliminated the backlog from their brief intake cessation.

How big a decrease are we talking about? TDCJ had 142,169 prisoners as of August 31, 2019, and 120,707 as of September 2020, giving Texas a 15% reduction (21,462 fewer inmates) over the last year.

How significant a decrease that is depends on how you look at it, but it's not small potatoes. 21,462 fewer inmates represents about a 1.5% reduction in the total number of federal and state prisoners in the entire country, according to the federal Bureau of Justice Statistics. 

Only 21 other state prison systems, by my count, incarcerated more than 21,000 people in 2019. Put another way, in the last year, Texas reduced its prison population by more prisoners than most states incarcerate en toto! 

Indeed, Texas' prison population reduced so much in the last year that, if Wyoming, Vermont, Rhode Island, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine, and Arkansas had reduced by the same amount, their prisons would all be virtually empty.* 

If Grits were still a professional opposition researcher working for candidates, as I did in a past life, I might look at this sudden drop and wonder "Why are Texas state leaders soft on crime?" I might even look at recently reported increases in murder rates nationwide, which are mimicked in Texas' data, to try to claim Governor Abbott or Lt. Gov. Abbott were responsible for increased murders (as opposed to the murderers) because incarceration declines happened on their watch.

That would be unfair, disingenuous, and frankly ridiculous, just as it was when those state leaders claimed for campaign purposes that Austin had turned into some murderous, crime-ridden hellhole. But that's politics. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯

In reality, this reduction represents good news on every level and R and D partisans should all accept it as such. Texas state leaders had been had been telling the prison system to focus budget cuts on treatment services and other areas that would squeeze prisoners and increase recidivism. But now, populations have dropped. This news means TDCJ can likely close multiple, additional units to save money instead. In a year when tax revenue is short thanks to COVID, lower prison populations should turn out to be a budgetary mitzvah.

*The total 2019 prison population of these 8 states was just 311 more than Texas' one-year reduction.

Texas prison pop reaches 21st-century lows, but jail populations rising again

Keri Blakinger brings word that the Texas Department of Criminal Justice a) has shuttered three additional prison units and b) has witnessed the prison population dip to 120,709, which is the lowest it's been since before the turn of the century. That's mainly because county jails for several months stopped sending new inmates to TDCJ, says Blakinger, but they started taking them again in June. I'm a bit surprised that they wouldn't have caught up four months hence.

Perhaps also contributing: a substantial, reported crime decline this spring and court slowdowns, including most not setting felony trials, thus possibly delaying plea bargains.

By contrast, Texas county jails statewide had reduced populations by about 15% this spring, but as of October 1st are back to pre-COVID levels.

Both juvenile commitments to youth prisons and certifications of youth as adults also declined in 2020, reported the Legislative Budget board.

Texas leaders' budget direction for prison agency makes no sense

Texas state agencies have been asked to prepare budgets that include 5% cuts in light of reduced tax revenues thanks to the coronavirus and plunging oil prices, the Texas Tribune's Jolie McCullough reported on Twitter. The TDCJ Correctional Security division and UTMB Managed Correctional Healthcare are exempt from cuts, but "Other parts of TDCJ's budget though — like parole, education/training programs, drug treatment, executives — seemingly will have to be in proposed 5% cut."

This is exactly backwards from a wise management response. Most of Texas' prison costs stem from incarceration. In reality, slightly boosting parole and drug treatment funding could easily reduce incarceration in a big way, allowing the state to close more prison units and reduce spending on the agency's largest line item.

In particular, there are presently about 15,000 people locked up in TDCJ who have already been granted parole but haven't been afforded access to treatment services which they're required to complete before they're released. By spending money to let these folks complete treatment services before they're up for parole, the state could eliminate incarceration costs for them and close a half-dozen large units or more.

Moreover, treatment best practices dictate that they should receive services earlier, anyway - closer to the time when they were struggling with addiction in the free world. Making them wait till the end of their sentence is something that happens because TDCJ doesn't provide services at sufficient levels, not because it's the right thing to do.

Another option would be to let folks complete treatment services once they're out on parole. Thanks to the COVID lockdowns, many of these courses already are being taken via correspondence packets the prisoners complete in their cells. There's not much difference between that approach and letting them complete them in the free world and hand them in to their parole officers.

State leaders are basically saying to TDCJ: "You operate an inefficient system. So double down on the most inefficient part and cut spending on the parts that would save money for the state overall."

Honestly, at times like these, Grits can't help but wonder if state leaders actually want people locked up in prison longer than necessary, or if they just don't have a clue what they're doing. I suppose those two things are not mutually exclusive.

TDCJ population hits recent lows thanks to COVID, but the reduction is a phantom that at some point will reverse

Thanks to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice's cessation of intake from Texas county jails, the state's prison population has declined to what may be a 21st century low of 135,833. (See this report documenting monthly totals.)

Last year, TDCJ averaged 5,475 new receives per month, so the reduction is attributable almost entirely to the lack of new intake. Nobody extra is getting released.

In fact, the same report tells us fewer people may be released now than before. Some 1,806 fewer people were granted considered for parole in April compared to March, and 654 fewer approved. Many of these folks still must receive treatment services or have discharge plans approved. So that reduction wouldn't affect that many immediate releases last month. But it could set the stage for fewer releases down the line.

Grits wonders if this isn't an issue of practicality rather than policy. I've been assured by legislators that the parole board hasn't altered release policies as a function of the coronavirus. But there are only 8 parole board members and 16 commissioners who make these decisions. It's not hard to imagine that, with schools out, people's kids at home requiring supervision and schooling, difficulties conducting face-to-face parole interviews because of lockdowns, and all the other life disruptions that have come along with the COVID shutdown, workloads could have fallen not because of policy but just because those individuals couldn't process as many cases last month. That's speculation, but it would explain the contradiction between the data and official statements that release policies haven't changed.

Regardless, when TDCJ begins taking inmates from county jails again, we're no doubt going to see a big jump in their population numbers. And at some point, the dip in parole releases, combined with the delayed intake, may push TDCJ's population even above pre-COVID levels.

The report didn't give us recent enough data to say what's happening with probation revocations (much less tell us how that relates to the COVID shutdown). Parole revocations are down about 15 percent over the first four months of 2020 compared with the same period in 2019.

It's also notable that county jail populations overall have declined during the COVID lockdown, even though thousands of TDCJ-bound prisoners are stranded there who normally would have already moved on to state lockups. That means declines in crime/arrests/jail intake, combined with judicial efforts to eliminate low-risk offenders from jails, have had an even larger effect on local jail populations than the backing up of TDCJ-bound inmates.

That's good news. Grits is hopeful that local justice systems will emerge from the COVID era adopting what's been referred to by some as a "new normal," maintaining some of the policies and practices that drove jail populations down into the future, even when the virus isn't influencing decisions.  It's not like we've seen some major crime spike during this period of reduced arrests, expanded pretrial release, and lower jail populations.

Finally, Grits is surprised we haven't heard more, louder complaints from county sheriffs and commissioners over the thousands of inmates backed up in county jails awaiting transfer to TDCJ. These folks cost counties about $60 per day per person and there is no money available to cover those costs. Sheriffs raise bloody hell over the cost of parolees incarcerated over "blue warrants," and that's a much smaller number of folks.

The Governor announced local criminal-justice grants for jails to pay for medical services related to COVID, but they don't cover costs for inmates who normally would have moved on to state prisons. Look for this issue to have a higher profile as the number of state prisoners backed up in county jails continues to mount.

CORRECTION: This post originally said there were 1,800 fewer people paroled in April than March. That number represented those considered for parole. There were 654 fewer people approved. I regret the error. Thanks to Marc Levin for pointing it out: That's excellent and commendable reader behavior. :)

Fifth Circuit still sucks on prison-conditions litigation: Coronavirus edition

The US Supreme Court has declined to vacate a stay by the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals of an injunction granted to Texas prison inmates from the Pack Unit, a geriatric prison unit, reported the New York Times. The inmates had asked for improved protections from the coronavirus. Four justices were needed to take the case, but only two apparently wanted to do so. Justice Sotomayor issued a statement, joined by Justice Ginsberg. Here are some notable excerpts:

The District Court heard unrefuted testimony that, despite the prison’s claim of enhanced cleaning measures, its cleaning protocol in practice remained virtually the same. The facility neither increased the number of inmate janitors nor ensured that the existing janitors did their jobs safely and effectively. One janitor testified that, just as before the pandemic, the cleaning solution provided to the cleaning crews was frequently depleted by midafternoon, only halfway through a shift. Each day he received only one pair of gloves to share with his co-janitor, an arrangement medical experts described as tantamount to no gloves at all.

The facility’s failures to comply with its own safety protocol became even clearer after [inmate Leonard] Clerkly’s death. Prison policies required that any inmate showing signs of Covid–19 be “‘triaged’” and “‘placed in medical isolation’” and that all areas used by the symptomatic inmate be thoroughly disinfected. Id., at *11. Yet even though Clerkly had difficulty breathing and died only a few hours after being transported to the hospital, the prison “made no representations” to the District Court that “they identified Mr. Clerkly as symptomatic, evaluated him for potential COVID-19 infection, or isolated or treated him for COVID-19 at any point before his transport to the hospital on the day of his death.” Ibid.

In fact, the prison “did not implement further precautionary measures until three days after Mr. Clerkly’s death.” Ibid. In the meantime, while the prison waited for a positive Covid–19 test that seemed certain to come, “countless inmates were knowingly exposed to a serious substantial risk of harm.” 

Having heard testimony from several witnesses from the Pack Unit and from prison experts who declared the Pack Unit practices “woefully inadequate,” the District Court held that applicants were likely to succeed on their Eighth Amendment claim. Id., at *12. The court noted the “obvious” risk of Covid–19 to the older men in the Pack Unit and reasoned that the prison’s failure to take basic steps, many of which were required by its own policies, evinced deliberate indifference. Id., *10, *13. The District Court then ordered the prison to mitigate the harm to inmates, including through some measures recommended by an expert witness who had managed prisons himself. Id., at *6–*7, *9–*12; 2020 WL 1899274.

Of particular interest was Sotomayor's analysis of the Fifth Circuit's decision and how they (perhaps improperly) ignored detailed fact finding from the lower court. Long-time watchers of this court will not be surprised, but I'm still glad someone said it: 

Despite the District Court’s detailed, careful findings, based on live testimony and the court’s own visit to the Pack Unit, the Fifth Circuit stayed the injunction. The Fifth Circuit noted that the prison had submitted evidence of “the protective measures it ha[d] taken as a result” of the Covid– 19 pandemic, and so the question was simply whether the Eighth Amendment required the prison “to do more.” 956 F. 3d, at ___ – ___.1 But in crediting the prison’s assurances, the Fifth Circuit did not address all of the District Court’s factual findings that the prison had inexplicably discarded its own rules and, in doing so, evinced deliberate indifference to the medical needs of its inmates.2 See Farmer v. Brennan, 511 U. S. 825, 842 (1994) (noting that deliberate indifference is a question of fact often made out

by “inference from circumstantial evidence”). The Fifth Circuit may have acted outside its authority in refusing to defer to those factual findings. See Anderson v. Bessemer City, 470 U. S. 564, 573 (1985). Similarly, while the Fifth Circuit faulted the District Court for issuing an admittedly exacting injunction, that injunction too was rooted in equally detailed factfinding regarding the prison’s failure to live up to its promises.

Similarly worth noting was the discussion of the 5th Circuit's reading of "exhaustion" provisions in the Prison Litigation Reform Act, which, even when interpreted correctly, have shut down prison-conditions litigation all over the country in problematic ways. If TDCJ grievance procedures are effectively a "dead end," wondered Sotomayor, do they really count as an "available" remedy?

Also concerning was some of the Fifth Circuit’s language regarding exhaustion. This Court has made clear that the PLRA requires exhaustion only of “available” judicial remedies. Ross v. Blake, 578 U. S. ___, ___ (2016) (slip op., at 8). “[T]he ordinary meaning of the word ‘available’ is ‘capable of use for the accomplishment of a purpose.’” Ibid. (some internal quotation marks omitted). Thus, when a grievance procedure is a “dead end”—when “the facts on the ground” indicate that the grievance procedure provides no possibility of relief—the procedures may well be “unavailable.” Id., at ___ (slip op., at 9).

The Fifth Circuit seemed to reject the possibility that grievance procedures could ever be a “dead end” even if they could not provide relief before an inmate faced a serious risk of death. But if a plaintiff has established that the prison grievance procedures at issue are utterly incapable of responding to a rapidly spreading pandemic like Covid–19, the procedures may be “unavailable” to meet the plaintiff’s purposes, much in the way they would be if prison officials ignored the grievances entirely. Ibid. Here, of course, it is difficult to tell whether the prison’s system fits in that narrow category, as applicants did not attempt to avail themselves of the grievance process before filing suit. But I caution that in these unprecedented circumstances, where an inmate faces an imminent risk of harm that the grievance process cannot or does not answer, the PLRA’s textual exception could open the courthouse doors where they would otherwise stay closed.  

Sotomayor added:

As the circumstances of this case make clear, the stakes could not be higher. Just a few nights ago, respondents revealed that “numerous inmates and staff members” at the Pack Unit “are now COVID-19 positive and the vast majority of those tested positive within the past two weeks.” 

Finally, her commentary concluded:

It has long been said that a society’s worth can be judged by taking stock of its prisons. That is all the truer in this pandemic, where inmates everywhere have been rendered vulnerable and often powerless to protect themselves from harm. May we hope that our country’s facilities serve as models rather than cautionary tales.

That's all well and good, but hope is not a medical policy and won't address the unrefuted problems identified by the District court at the Pack Unit. This is incredibly disappointing. 

TDCJ inmates on COVID lockdown now have access to phone service

Grits had earlier discussed how COVID lockdowns at TDCJ were keeping inmates from communicating with their families. Apparently phone access has been restored for these units. TDCJ has posted this on the COVID FAQ page on their website:

The Offender Telephone System (OTS) is now operating 24 hours a day 7 days a week. Offenders are being escorted to phones when they are available even after traditional hours. Each offender is receiving 2 free 15-minute calls a week which reset every Tuesday. Disciplinary restrictions have been suspended. Offenders who do not have access to the OTS are being escorted to hardline phones in the units to make calls.

This is excellent news. Given that roughly a third of TDCJ prisoners are presently on lockdown over the virus, with more than 21,000 on medical restrictions because they had contact with an infected person, limiting phone access was untenable and cruel. 

UPDATE: Our pal Keri Blakinger tells me she doesn't think this is true for all units. Will update when I learn more.

MORE: Blakinger spoke to TDCJ spokesman Jeremy Desel who told her the FAQ page was somewhat overstated. Here's what he told her:

"I won’t say all but most of the precautionary lockdown units are doing phone access in limited amounts while going to and from showers. So they found a way to manage that to give a five-minute phone call. It’s not logistically feasible every single unit. But the majority of units people are at least getting SOME phone calls."

Deitch on possible solutions for prisoner phone calls during COVID lockdown

The Texas prison system has placed about 1/3 of the inmate population on lockdown status, including denying them access to visitation and phone calls. Michele Deitch of UT's LBJ School had a good idea on how to mitigate the situation: Providing burner phones for in-cell use. In an email to Just Liberty, she wrote:

I agree it is a very reasonable accommodation to allow people to have phones calls during a lockdown, especially when it is as likely to be as prolonged as this one will surely be. It is not only good from a humanitarian prospective, but it mitigates the harms caused by the lack of family connectedness, the idleness, and the lack of any type of outside eyes on what is happening inside. It can also help prevent violence and provide a lifeline to any person experiencing abuse or who cannot access health care. (Speaking of which, without access to phones, how does the PREA hotline work?) I have advocated for this approach from the beginning, and support it wholeheartedly. 

That said, the practicalities will be incredibly challenging. There are usually one or two wall phones per housing unit, and they are located in the dayroom. I don’t know if they are allowing folks individual access to the dayroom during the lockdowns (they should be), but they probably aren’t. If they are, they should be allowed to use the phones then. If not, TDCJ should get some kind of mobile phone booth that can be taken around to the cells (it’s pretty awkward- looking, but I have seen one in use at another facility before). Of course, the phone would have to be sanitized between uses, which isn’t so easy to do, and if it isn’t done, it could just risk spreading the virus more. 

What REALLY should happen is that TDCJ should obtain and issue burner phones with no data that can just be used for phone calls and let the prisoners have them. They are doing this in England now. Believe it or not, they are literally surveying the inmates to find out which cell phone companies work best behind the walls (based on their illegal usage)! 

And of course, any of this is something TDCJ could do tomorrow. No legislative act required.

I looked up England's use of secure phones for prisoners and found this article from the East Anglian Daily Times. According to that source:

A total of 900 secure phone handsets will be given to prisoners at 55 jails, allowing risk-assessed inmates to speak to a small number of pre-authorised contacts.

Strict measures will ensure the phones are not misused with calls time limited and monitored closely and they will not have internet access, the Ministry of Justice (MoJ) said.

The handsets will also include measures to prevent non-secure SIM cards being used, the MoJ added. ...

Currently more than 50 prisons across England and Wales have in-cell telephony which allows prisoners to stay in touch with their family members in a controlled manner.

The MoJ said the new handsets will make sure this ability is balanced across all prisons, and promote stability in jails without existing in-cell phones.

Roundup of Texas headlines on COVID in prisons and jails

Several, notable headlines drew Grits' attention related to the coronavirus and Texas prisons and jails. Let's round them up.

• Texas Tribune: Texas Supreme Court sides with Abbott after judge halted his order restricting jail release: The high court did not weigh in on the arguments that Abbott's order went beyond his executive powers in a disaster. Instead, it ruled the Harris County judges were the wrong plaintiffs. Here's the SCOT order.
• Texas Observer: Greg Abbott's power grab on bail reform
• Texas Tribune: Federal appeals court stops earlier order, says Texas doesn't have to give inmates hand sanitizer or face masks for now. See the 5th Circuit's court order.
• Houston Chronicle: ‘A perfect storm’: Health experts warn of rapid COVID-19 spread in Texas prisons, recommend early releases
• KHOU: TDCJ correctional officer, 2 inmates die from apparent COVID-related complications
• Huntsville Item: TDCJ COVID-19 UPDATE: Offender at Wynne Unit has died from coronavirus
• KLTV: TDCJ updates Beto Unit 106 COVID-19 cases, 54 tests pending
• Texas Tribune: Coronavirus in Texas: County jail population shrank by more than 10,000
• Dallas Morning News: Dallas detention officers told not to ‘spook’ inmates with masks as COVID-19 fears began, testimony shows
• KHOU: 151 Harris County Sheriff's Office employees, 99 jail inmates test positive for coronavirus
• KRGV: At least 9 jailed for violating Cameron County emergency order
• McAllen Monitor: LUPE talks jail reform; details of first inmate case emerge
• Montgomery Advertiser: Sheriff requests hazardous duty pay raise for county employees during pandemic
• KRIS-TV: Are remote hearings the future for legal system?

Blakinger: Myriad pandemic updates, conflicting accounts on intra-prison transports, and one happy story to cheer you up

Our pal Keri Blakinger offered up another excellent and much-appreciated email update while Grits' blog content ramps back up. I couldn't be more grateful, thanks Keri!

Hey Grits,

Guess what I had for breakfast? Actual grits. For the first time in my life. I always skipped grits days in the prison mess hall but now I bought a bunch for my pandemic pantry. They are surprisingly good!

I was pleased to see your update and welcome your imminent return to the blogosphere! Here is one more get well and come back soon email and update.

As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the world is falling apart. So I’ve included eight depressing virus-related items, one longer discussion of an uncovered issue, and one short happy thing!! You have to make it to the end for the happy thing, no cheating!

Depressing Items

1. As coronavirus began making its way across the country a few weeks ago, people suddenly realized: Prisons literally banned a lot of basic disease prevention measures. With a lot of pressure some of this has changed, but generally, as of a few weeks ago prisons across the country banned alcohol-based hand sanitizer, made social distancing impossible, and did not allow face masks. (Relatedly, this is a good Stateman story from a few weeks ago about supplies/prisons.) 
2. There are a lot of aging and medically needy prisoners. This is a thing you have, of course, written about. And it came up a lot in the Pack litigation. But now it could be extremely problematic for the prisons and jails that are about to be overwhelmed with an illness that particularly puts medically compromised and aging populations at risk.
3. Given all that, prisoners are suing TDCJ. The attorneys on the case are - of course! - Scott Medlock and Jeff Edwards. Their names should be familiar to Grits readers because of the air conditioning and hepatitis C lawsuits. FWIW, there are a lot of corona-related lawsuits out there across the country, but most of the ones I’ve seen seem to be about release. This one is about conditions; i.e., they’re asking for supplies like hand sanitizer and measures like social distancing, not arguing that they should get out.
4. Speaking of release, everyone from experts to advocates to law enforcement officials to editorial boards has been advocating for jail and prison releases as a way to minimize the spread behind bars. The exact mechanics vary but the Galveston jail population is down 20 percent, Travis County is down some 600 people, and Dallas County - where 20 inmates have tested positive - is down a few hundred.
5. In addition to f***ing up the jails, prisons, courts and every aspect of life in general, the coronavirus is f***ing up death. Specifically, the pandemic has forced Texas to postpone three execution dates and seems likely to force the state to call off more. It’s also slowing down litigation, investigations and clemency efforts, as well as delaying trials, hearings and argument. Maurice Chammah and I quote your beloved podcast co-host Amanda Marzullo in our coverage of it.
6. The state is actively fighting to keep people in jail. First, Ken Paxton - himself a felony arrestee out on personal bond - filed to intervene and prevent the possible release on personal bond of 4,000 Harris County inmates who he said would be able to “roam freely and commit more crimes during the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic.” Then, the governor stepped in and did an executive order banning use of personal bond for anyone with any current or prior violent charge. The misdemeanor judges here in Harris County DNGAF. The felony courts are a little more complicated, as Gabrielle Banks and frenemy Sinjin report.
7. Speaking of death, a lot of people are buying guns. Federal background checks for gun sales are way up over last month, Ted Oberg reported. This is exactly not at all surprising - though the fact that in Texas gun stores have stayed open and abortion clinics were closed seems to have raised some eyebrows.
8. We all know short-term fluctuations in crime aren’t necessarily indicative of anything, but FWIW crime is down. I guess it’s hard to burglarize when everybody is at home. But at the same time, police are worried about seeing an increase in child abuse and domestic violence in the coming weeks. (In Dallas, the CBS affiliate already reported that happening more than two weeks ago, and Houston Public Media wrote about it this week.) I’m sure that’s only one of many awful, terrible things to come. Sorry this is the world you’re coming back to Grits, things got fucked up while you were gone!

The Longer Discussion:

The Texas prison system was slow to give employees access to protective gear and to halt inmate transfers, both practices that officers and advocates worried would create health risks during a pandemic that has already made its way into the state prison system. (As of Sunday evening, 18 inmates and 25 TDCJ staff had tested positive and some 3,700 prisoners were on medical restriction.)

Typically, hundreds of prisoners across the state are moved around every day, and there are more than 200 transport officers whose jobs are dedicated to making that happen. Sometimes the moves are for medical reasons, but other times it’s for court appearances, in preparation for release, to go to a unit that offers a specific type of program. The moves - often in the wee hours of the night - are stressful for everyone involved, and typically involve being chained to another person and loaded onto the white prison buses zipping up and down I-45.

But in the era of social distancing, that poses a clear safety risk - both because of the forced proximity and because of the possibility of spreading disease across the system through asymptomatic carriers. TDCJ - like every other prison system in the country - has already cut off visitation and programming, as well as attorney visits and in-person parole board interviews. But the continued need for prisoner transports has been a source of some tension. 

Even after officials in late March said the agency had stopped all but medical transports, officers repeatedly said that wasn’t true. At one point, it broke out into a little spat on Facebook between the Texas Correctional Institute Facebook page, a group run by TDCJ officers involved in a nonprofit by the same name.

“Texas prisons are breeding grounds for spreading COVID-19 with non medical chain buses running daily and staff lacking proper PPE such as N95 mask,” Texas Correctional Institute (TCI) posted on March 26, linking to an article titled: “Could Prison System Contribute To Increased Spread of COVID-19?”

“You are wrong,” spokesman Jeremy Desel wrote in response. “There are only medically necessary transfers occurring along with intake from unaffected counties. There are also significant supplies of N-95.”

The TCI main page and numerous individual posters disputed that, as did several officers I interviewed. 

Later, when I called Desel about it for a story, he clarified: Almost all transports had ceased, but sometimes people have to be moved from one unit to another to make room for other medical-related transports. The officers I’ve talked to still say that’s understating what’s going on, and point out that the agency is still accepting new intakes from counties and out-of-state. For example, officials in Louisiana confirmed sending two people to Texas last weekend - and both are now in custody of TDCJ. 

So it appears that even as the governor was drafting an last weekend’s executive order for any travelers from Louisiana self-quarantine, Texas was taking in new inmates freshly transported from a part of the country with one of the highest coronavirus infection rates in the country. It’s unclear if they’re parole violators or if they were picked up by a local law enforcement entity before ending up in TDCJ.

In recent days, officers have confirmed that internal transfers are down significantly, but the allegation that too many happened for too long is not unique to Texas: Across the country, other prison systems - particularly the BOP - were seemingly reluctant to slow down internal moves, facing some criticism for it.

Another source of criticism for prison officials in Texas and elsewhere has been the reluctance to allow the use of masks - both by prisoners and staff.  In the federal system, some units have issued them to prisoners and in New York they’ve (as of last week) been allowed for corrections staff and some prisoners. In Nebraska, last week the agency mandated masks for employees (and the prison director posed in one to make the point). Here, officers and union leaders voiced concerns over the past week or so about the lack of access to masks, which many report they have were not permitted to wear at work. 

“We’re already 4,800 officers short, we can’t afford a mass exodus because they’re not provided PPE,” AFSCME Texas Corrections president Jeff Ormsby told me. “The CDC is recommending a mask anywhere you go now, but we should be letting the staff wear them in prison.”

Late Sunday, that changed. Now, all medically restricted prisoners and all agency staff will be issued cloth masks. And, prisoners at the garment factories are making more. 

On the one hand, this raises questions as to whether the agency could have acted sooner - but on the other hand, it’s hard to fathom what a really successful intervention might look like in a prison system. In the absolute best case scenario, meaningful social distancing is just not possible in most housing areas, and so many of the other mitigation efforts pose significant logistical challenges. So what’s next? The union is pushing for a systemwide lockdown. So far, I haven't heard any official support for that idea but with the pace of this news cycle - who knows.

The Good Thing

PAM COLLOFF HAS A HAPPY STORY. Everybody hearts Pam, and I especially heart her right now for providing a rare, rare moment of hope when everything seems to be on fire. I could go on but you’ve read enough words by now so here it is: Joe Bryan got out. ENJOY. Congrats to Pam, and welcome home to Joe.