1 week Ago By Fort Worth Star-Telegram
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn accepted an invitation to address county commissioners regarding a federal report on the county jail during a special called meeting on Tuesday, Nov. 12. Waybourn in October presented a , an agency of the Department of Justice, on conditions in the county jail.
Conducted over three days in May by a psychologist and a physician from the , the report focused primarily on mental health and health care services in the jail. The report praised jail employees and administrators for the “access, openness, and candor that was exhibited during this process,” saying it “reflects leadership within [Tarrant County Sheriff’s Office] and a system that seeks to treat incarcerated individuals as well as possible.” Waybourn read that passage from the report’s conclusions and added context about the reviewers’ comments during their final briefing with him.
“They looked at me and said, ‘Sheriff, you have a Cadillac model of jail,” Waybourn told commissioners. “And I stand on that. I still believe it’s one of the best jails in the nation.
” He also highlighted the report’s praise for “progressive practices” in the jail, such as its competency restoration efforts, by which inmates with mental health issues who are determined not to be fit to stand trial are restored to competency. Of the 750 inmates across Texas who were last year, 430 were in Tarrant County, Waybourn said. “We led the way in that way, and our HHMR people are doing a great job,” he said, referring to the staff from My Health My Resources, who provide mental health services in the jail.
The report found that the jail’s suicide monitoring operations do not fully comply with national standards. It noted that “a status called ‘suicide watch’ does not exist,” but that jail standard operating procedures state that inmates on a type of special precaution status are checked in on every 10 minutes, rather than the standard every 30 minutes. Waybourn said jailers had intervened and stopped 279 suicide attempts in 2023, and that number is already 350 this year.
“I think that spells that we are advocates for our people,” he said. “We’re watching. We’re doing our job.
” Despite these achievements, the federal investigators recommended a formal suicide watch status be created within the jail’s existing statuses and that categories of suicide monitoring urgency be created. The report also recommended more mental health resources for inmates in single-cell confinement for 23 hours a day, as well as increased out-of-cell time and a reduction in the overall number of inmates under this type of confinement. Waybourn did not address this recommendation, but Tarrant County residents who spoke during the public comments section pointed it out.
“Many alternatives to solitary confinement are suggested,” said Fort Worth resident Reed Bilz. “I hope the sheriff takes the suggestions made by the NIC consultants. They are intended to improve the situation in our county jails.
” Julie Griffin, also of Fort Worth, read directly from the report when she mentioned single-cell confinement: “It is the TA review team’s opinion that this level of confinement for any individual is detrimental to their mental and physical health.” Precinct 2 Commissioner Alisa Simmons, who invited Waybourn to present the briefing, said it was incorrect to call the report a “DOJ” report, citing a disclaimer at the beginning of it: “Points of view or opinions stated in this document are those of the authors and do not necessarily represent the official position or policies of the U.S.
Department of Justice.” “I think we need to be transparent about what this was, and that’s why I wanted you to come today, and I appreciate you attending today,” she told Waybourn. Noting that the report did not address the issue of in-custody deaths Simmons repeated her call for an investigation by the to review the jail through the lens of jail deaths.
County Judge Tim O’Hare noted that the NIC is an agency of the DOJ. Waybourn pointed out that the Civil Rights Division conducts criminal investigations and asked Simmons to clarify if that was what she was calling for. “That is correct,” she said.
U.S. Rep.
Marc Veasey, a Fort Worth Democrat, has also called for a Justice Department . Precinct 4 Commissioner Manny Ramirez thanked Waybourn for bringing in statistics and other numbers to compare to similar counties. “Sometimes we get lost in the trees and we don’t see forest, but the fact of the matter is, we perform, as far as keeping our inmates safe, better than our closest peer when it comes to population, which is Bexar,” Ramirez said.
Over 65 people have died in Sheriff’s Office custody since Waybourn took office in 2017. He presented jail death figures alongside the same stat for similarly sized counties in Texas from 2017 to 2023. With 58 deaths in those years, Tarrant County came in after Bexar, which has seen 85 jail in that time, according to his figures.
Dallas County, which has over 2,500 more jail beds than Tarrant, saw 56 jail deaths in those years, while Harris, with more than double Tarrant’s jail capacity, saw 112. Speaking to reporters after the session, Simmons included the baby of Chasity Congious, who in the county jail in 2020, in her count of jail deaths. After Precinct 1 Commissioner Roy Charles Brooks mentioned an attempt in the 2023 legislative session to have a state mental health hospital in Tarrant County.
That prompted O’Hare to announce that his office plans to present a resolution on the matter to the court in January. “I’ve spoken to multiple legislators, senators, House members, about this very issue,” he said, adding that adding onto an existing location is a possibility as well..
