HARRIS COUNTY, Texas (KTRK) — Former detention officers at the Harris County Jail are hoping for change to keep staff and inmates safe inside the jail’s walls.
Two former detention officers sat down with ABC13 anonymously to discuss their observations during their several-year stint at the jail.
They said what they were subjected to inside those four walls was much more than what they signed up for.
“Inmate got assaulted by another inmate, and I was trying to take him out, and he got aggressive toward me, and he spit blood in my eye,” one of the former detention officers said.
They said no one is safe from the violence. Inmates are assaulting jailers and other inmates.
“Inmates throat slit, just sitting there on the table playing a card game, and somebody walks up behind him and just slices their throat,” one of the men recalled. “Ears being bitten off. It’s really gory.”
ABC13 obtained video from inside the jail that showed jailers assaulting other jailers in addition to inmates.
The former employees described blood, bruises, and broken bones.
“There is a certain level of violence that you expect in a place that’s full of people accused of violence. Do you feel like this exceeds what it should be?” reporter Mycah Hatfield asked one of the former officers.
“Definitely,” one said. “I feel like this is not how you feel talking to some people that work in different jails.”
Not everyone in the Harris County Jail is accused of a violent offense. 86% have not been convicted of the crime they are behind bars for.
“It’s like, if you’re on patrol as a deputy, it’s on the news,” one of the men said. “You see ‘officer injured’ or ‘officer shot,’ but in there, it happens on a daily basis, and it’s not brought to the attention of the community as it should be.”
ABC13 requested numbers from the sheriff’s internal reporting system, the ‘Offender Management System.’
In 2023 alone, the numbers show 1,180 assaults on staff, 4,081 assaults on inmates, 4,375 fights, and 1,579 instances of consensual and non-consensual sexual encounters.
ABC13 also requested the number of charges filed for incidents at the jail. From the start of 2023 to October of this year, the Harris County District Attorney’s Office reported 71 charges, meaning less than 1% of the violent encounters resulted in charges.
One of the jailers described the sheriff’s office mentality as “They already got charges, so why try to charge them again?”
The former jailers said the inmates were sometimes disciplined internally by having their commissary taken away for a period of time.
Both former jailers put a large portion of the blame for the violent atmosphere on the low staffing numbers, which is a known problem for the Harris County Jail.
ABC13 has spoken to employees who work 16 hours a day, six days a week, because of staffing issues.
“It becomes dangerous when you only have one or two people walking the floor of more than 1,000 inmates,” one man said. “You are responsible for breaking up assaults and stuff like that.”
The jail was considered out of compliance with the state’s standards for two years. Only in August of this year were they given the thumbs up, but the State Commission on Jail Standards noted on their passing report that the way staffing was structured, they technically were not meeting the required 1 officer to 48 inmate ratio.
In 2023, the county approved a 12% pay raise to incentivize employment, but those we spoke to say there’s more to it than just money.
“Now it’s clock in, and we’re taking a risk of getting hurt, and that’s something we don’t want to do,” the former detention officer said.
The sheriff’s office declined an interview with ABC13 about staffing and safety issues. The office said the sheriff has talked about these issues before and is unsure what more they can add to the conversation.
In response to written questions, they said when an inmate commits a “serious assault” on an employee, they present the facts to the district attorney’s office for potential charges.
They also said, “In many cases, the inmate already faces a potential lengthy prison sentence if convicted of the charges that caused them to be jailed in the first place.”
As far as staffing, the jail currently has 99 vacant positions, the lowest they have had in years.
Numbers provided by the sheriff’s office show they are improving staff retention.
In 2022, they recorded having 411 detention officers leave the agency. In 2023, they lost 386, and 197 in 2024 as of Oct. 31.
“Nobody wants to work for a jail that doesn’t care about their employees, so it’s just a trickling down effect,” the former employee said.
Both former detention officers said they felt it necessary to speak up for the officers still working in the jail. They said they wish the sheriff’s office command staff visited the jail more often to assess what was happening and determine the needs.
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