Sandra Bland’s suicide in the Waller County jail on July 13 was the 140th time that detainees in Texas county jails have taken their own lives since authorities began compiling jail suicide statistics six years ago.

Bland, 28, a Chicago native and Prairie View A&M alumna who had just returned to Texas to work at her alma mater, was the 24th suicide in a jail in the eight-county Houston area in the last five years.

Of those suicides, jailers failed to conduct proper suicide screenings or observation checks in a third of them, state records show.

Prompted by the controversy over Bland’s death and a persistent pattern of disregard by local jailers, Texas lawmakers said Friday they will formally review state jail standards, procedures on dealing with potentially mentally ill inmates and interactions between police and the public.

“We are not doing enough to hold our jail administrators accountable,” Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said in an interview after Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick had asked the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, which Whitmire chairs, to look into the issue.

Read the rest of this article at The Houston Chronicle.