Press Contact: For all media inquiries, please contact Madison Kaigh, Communications Manager, at mkaigh@TexasCJE.orgor (512) 441-8123, ext. 108.
Ahead of the Harris County Commissioners Court’s first set of preliminary budget hearings today, a slew of advocacy groups in and around Houston slammed Harris County District Attorney Kim Ogg for an expected funding request for additional prosecutors for her office and called on Commissioners to reject the request, the fifth such ask by DA Ogg’s office since the start of 2019.
In a public letter released just before Thanksgiving, several local criminal justice reform groups asked Travis County District Attorney Margaret Moore to implement a “‘No Call’ policy for officers who've “committed perjury and other acts of grave misconduct." The letter notes, these officers "cannot be relied upon to tell the truth on the stand or in any documents that impact a person’s liberty.”
While package thefts are nothing new, there is a new state law in place. Typical theft charges are based on the value of what’s stolen; the more expensive the item, the bigger the charge. But the new law counts packages, not dollars.
When Charlie Owens was first told by a fellow church member that he had received a prophetic word from God that Charlie would be doing prison ministry, he thought that it was not likely. Now, Charlie and his wife Judy are helping inmates change their destinies through The Joseph Company Prison Ministry.
When the suspect in a brutal attack at a downtown parking garage bonded out of jail not once, but twice, it sparked a public outcry. Why did judges set David Cadena's bail to low, critics asked after a Dallas waitress was beaten so badly with a fire extinguisher that she lay in a coma with her eyes swollen shut for two days.
What happens to teenagers who become trapped in the adult justice system for committing just minor offenses? “I felt like I was losing my mind,” recalls “Leon,” who had been arrested on a marijuana possession charge and was thrown into solitary when he argued with a corrections officer.
In an email obtained by the Scene, a homeless-services provider says that people experiencing homelessness are not responding well to Nashville’s new winter overflow shelter — in part because it’s a converted jail.
“Does the commissary have any more tampons?” My bunkie shook her head. “I already asked when I went by there.” I panicked. “What are we gonna do? I’ve got six left, and I had to count them under my bed so no one would ask me for one. I’ll need them next week. I’m a terrible human being.”
A Texas juvenile prison employee was arrested Wednesday morning after he allegedly had a teenage boy perform oral sex on him at a Waco-area lock-up, officials said. Jatavian Smith was charged with sexual assault of a child after records show he admitted going into the boy’s cell on Thursday night and sexually assaulting him.
Senior Policy Analyst for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition (TCJC), Douglas Smith, challenged his audience on Thursday Oct.17 to imagine a world without police officers or prisons. Smith, a St. Edward’s alumni and formerly incarcerated person, spoke on his six year experience in prison and how the United States currently resides in an era of mass incarceration.
