The lockdown, which started Wednesday morning, will prohibit the motion of roughly 129,000 presently incarcerated folks, in response to prison-reform advocacy teams. TDCJ did not say when it is going to finish its statewide sweep.
The lockdown takes place because the state experiences its second-hottest summer season on document and faces mounting criticism for holding the vast majority of its prisoners in amenities with no air-con. The scalding warmth has pushed some Texas prisoners to soak their bedsheets in bathroom water to remain cool, in response to testimony not too long ago offered to TDCJ officers.
Jail-reform advocates argue the lockdown will solely exacerbate already-dire circumstances within the prisons, similar to staffing shortages. In the course of the sweep, any prisoners who had beforehand completed work contained in the jail have been stripped of their positions, worsening the understaffing.
Jessica Dickerson, treasurer of Texas Prisons Group Advocates (TPCA), stated lots of the TDCJ’s warmth mitigation insurance policies cannot perform with out acceptable employees.
“[T]he extra folks you hearth, the more serious your staffing points get,” Dickerson stated. “And we have already had so many deaths this summer season as a result of TDCJ’s heat-mitigation insurance policies can’t perform with out the suitable employees.”
The present lockdown additionally halts all visitations to incarcerated folks, and TDCJ is ending supply of conventional mail and transferring to an all digital system, in response to officers with the state company. They stated the latter measure is required as a result of paper mail has change into a supply system for medicine.
“Over the previous couple of years, there was a major improve in paper soaked in K2 or methamphetamines coming into our amenities,” TDCJ stated in a media assertion.
The banning of paper mail follows a 2021 TDCJ rule that banned all mail apart from letters written on plain white paper and images of family members.
“[In in a recent report, TDCJ Executive Director] Brian Collier himself, stated that during the last 5 years has been a 492% improve in medicine within the system,” Dickerson stated.
On the similar time, TDCJ continued to crack down on mail being delivered to prisoners.
“So, what I can really feel comfy saying is both their program failed, or it is not coming via the mail,” Dickerson stated.
