Texas county jail inmates are dying from illness

Over 280 Texas county jail inmates died from illness over a four year period, according to data from the Texas attorney general analyzed by The Texas Tribune. "The number of illness-related deaths in county jails comes close to the number of deaths in state penitentiaries — despite the fact that county lockups house half as many inmates, on average, and keep them for much shorter periods," Brandi Grissom reports for the Tribune. Sheriffs say dwindling budgets are making it more difficult to meet the health care needs of inmates. (Photo by Caleb Bryant Miller)

Still, they say "they are doing everything they can to care for people who come to them with a multitude of physical and mental illnesses that are exacerbated by drug and alcohol addiction," Grissom writes. Criminal justice advocates say the high number of illness-related deaths proves state standards for health care in county jails are needed. "People aren’t dying of old age in jails," Michele Deitch, a jail conditions expert and professor at the University of Texas at Austin’s Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs, told Grissom. "Those numbers are more likely to be reflective of medical care concerns."

"The data analyzed by the Tribune related to more than 1,500 deaths that occurred in law enforcement custody statewide from January 2005 through September 2009," Grissom writes. "Nearly 500 of those deaths were inmates who were in the custody of the state’s 254 sheriff’s departments." That data includes deaths from high-intensity pursuits, suicides and incidents during arrests, but 282 of the deaths resulted from illnesses contracted before incarceration.

"In small counties, Brown said, one seriously ill inmate can cause health care costs to skyrocket," Grissom writes. In rural Ector County one inmate with terminal cancer racked up $140,000 in medical treatment bills while awaiting trial on murder charges. "Not just well people get arrested," said Ector County Sheriff Mark Donaldson. "Some people are in bad shape." He added that it is "our responsibility to take care of them." (Read more)