The agency charged with overseeing Texas’ county jails repeatedly failed to follow through with investigations of inmate complaints, a violation of state law requiring it to do so, according a new report from the Texas State Auditor’s Office.
State auditors also found that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) failed to keep accurate records of investigations sparked by prisoners’ complaints and that the agency didn’t conduct all jail inspections required under law, including one scheduled for Bexar County’s lockup.
TCJS is the sole state agency with oversight of Texas’ roughly 240 county jails, and the report warns that its failure to adequately deal with inmate complaints could jeopardize the health and safety of people in custody. The analysis is based on data collected from October 2022 through December 2024, during which TCJS received more than 9,700 complaints.
“The Commission on Jail Standards … had weaknesses in multiple aspects of its complaint processes. As a result, it did not process complaints in accordance with its policy or maintain accurate data,” the report states. “These weaknesses increase the risk that the commission will not identify a jail in violation of minimum standards, which could affect the safety and well-being of inmates.”
Indeed, auditors were only able to find records in 5% of cases that TCJS investigators assigned a severity level to inmate complaints — a necessary step in deciding how soon to contact jail officials. Further, the review suggested that in almost half of the complaints, investigators never contacted the jail at all.
The report also found that some investigations lingered unresolved for as long as two years, suggesting officials may never have acted on some prisoner complaints.
TCJS officials didn’t immediately respond to the Current’s request for comment on the audit. However, in a written statement included in the report, agency officials agreed with the findings and said they will implement the study’s suggested improvement processes by Aug. 1.
A total of 4,611 prisoners died from 2020 to 2024 while in custody of Texas law enforcement agencies, according to an analysis of state records by the nonprofit Texas Justice Initiative (TJI). While 59% of the deaths were due to natural causes or illness, much of the remainder are considered homicides, suicides, accidents and overdoses, TJI data shows.
Beyond its failure to follow through on inmate complaints, TCJS fell short on completing required inspections, according to the recent audit. While staff visited all jails for comprehensive inspections required once every 24 months under state law, they skipped over doing required limited inspections in at least five counties. Those included Bexar, Travis, Andrews, Navarro and Tom Green.
While the agency largely met required goals for closing out investigations following inmate deaths, as of March, it had failed to complete probes of three of the 287 inmate deaths that occurred between January 2023 and December 2024, the report states.
Additionally, auditors discovered problems with TCJS’s inspection scheduling tool, which helps determine how often jails should be visited based on their risk factors. Late last year, the tool miscalculated risk scores for 77% of jails under the agency’s purview.
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This article appears in Jun 12-25, 2025.
