County Jails in Texas

Texas jails are detention facilities that hold misdemeanor offenders and persons accused of crimes who have not yet been convicted in a court of law.

Texas jails are operated by county governments under the supervision of elected county sheriffs, with regulatory oversight from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

Jails are the first point of entry into the criminal justice system after a person is arrested by police, sheriff’s deputies, or other law enforcement.

Jail Population in Texas

Texas jails have a collective capacity of about 95,000 beds, of which about 70% are filled at any given time. As of November 1, 2021, Texas’s jails held 69,640 inmates for a capacity rate of 73.4%, according to data from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards.

The majority of inmates in Texas jails are pre-trial defendants accused of felony crimes. Of the inmates housed in Texas jails on November 1, 2021, 53.6% were pre-trial felony defendants and Another 4,498, or 6.5% of the jail population were misdemeanor pre-trial defendants.

In total, there are 239 jail systems in Texas, some of which contain multiple facilities, according to the 2020 annual report by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. More than a dozen rural counties opt to board their inmates in an adjacent county rather than maintaining their own facilities.

Jails vs Prisons

In common speech, the terms “jail” and “prison” are sometimes used interchangeably, but in fact they have different legal meanings.

Jails holds people only for shorter sentences or before trial, whereas prisons hold people for longer periods of time. All prisons in Texas are operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ), and all persons in the custody of TDCJ have been convicted of a crime.

County Jails vs State Jails

While most jails in Texas are operated by county governments, the state also operates a handful of facilities referred to as “state jails.”

Unlike county jails, which are for misdemeanor offenders and pre-trial defendants, state jails are for persons convicted of low-level felony offenses. State jail felonies, a category of offense created by the legislature in 1993, encompasses low-level drug offenses, certain property crimes, and other mid-level offenses.

State jails are akin to minimum security prisons. They are operated by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Jail Standards

Jail standards in Texas are set by statute and by regulations created by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards and codified in the Texas Administrative Code.

These standards include:

• Jail cells for one person only must have a clear floor area of 40 square feet or more . 
• Any other housing area must have a clear floor area of 18 square feet or more per prisoner.
• Jail cells or dormitories for three or more persons must be accessible to a day room to which prisoners may be given access during the day. 
• A county jail cell designed for one prisoner only must have a toilet, a combination sink and drinking fountain, a table, and a seat.
• A housing area designed for three or more prisoners must have one toilet and one combination sink and drinking fountain for every eight prisoners to be confined in the area.
• Prisoners in county jails are entitled to a bunk with a clean, comfortable mattress and enough clean blankets for the prisoner’s comfort.
• Each inmate shall be allowed one hour of supervised physical exercise or physical recreation at least three days per week.
• Inmates confined longer than ten days shall be allowed access to sunlight no less than one hour weekly.
• Food must be served three times in any 24-hour period. No more than 14 hours shall pass between meals without supplemental food being served.

It’s up to the counties that operate jails to comply with these standards, which also include a minimum jailer-to-inmate ratio, facility standards, and documentation requirements.

County jails are subject to inspections from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to ensure compliance with the minimum state standards, though such inspections are relatively rare. Counties may also adopt standards that are more stringent than the state minimums.

Sandra Bland Act Reforms

In a small town in southeast Texas in 2015, an African-American woman was found hanged in her jail cell, days after her arrest during a traffic stop. The death of Sandra Bland, a 28-year-old Chicago native, triggered protests, an FBI investigation, and multiple lawsuits. Bland’s name became a rallying cry in the Black Lives Matter movement. 

Though her death was ruled a suicide, dampening speculations of foul play, subsequent investigations found policy lapses at the jail where Bland had been held, called into question her arrest, and uncovered clear warning signs that might have prevented her death. 

Outrage over Bland’s death culminated in landmark state criminal justice legislation in 2017. The unanimously approved Sandra Bland Act (SB 1849) was one of several new laws that year that sought to address the nexus of mental health, substance abuse, and the criminal justice system. 

The Sandra Bland Act revised jailer training standards and required jails to have automated sensors to ensure that jailers did timely cell checks. The law also established a “good faith effort” standard requiring jailers to divert people suffering a mental health crisis or substance abuse issue. 

However, jails were given several years to meet some of these new requirements, and some aspects of the law have taken effect only recently. In the meantime, county jails in Texas continue to operate largely without oversight, apart from the supervision of local sheriffs. 

The Texas Commission on Jail Standards has just four field inspectors to cover more than 200 jails and an inmate population of more than 63,000. According to a November 2020 report by the state’s Sunset Advisory Commission, “the agency’s inspection and enforcement processes do not adequately and efficiently mitigate risk in jails,” and “when the agency does find violations, its limited enforcement process does not deter prolonged or repeat noncompliance.” 

Similarly, a November 2020 Sunset report on the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, the agency that regulates county jailers, said that “state’s current regulation is, by and large, toothless.” 

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