A Houston Landing investigation found that nearly 200 people in Texas had been flagged as potentially mentally ill but died in jail instead of getting the care they needed.
The impact of this series
- Harris County Judge Lina Hidalgo invested $645,000 in county funds to more than double the number of people who can access the county jail’s competency restoration program.
- Gov. Greg Abbott signed into law a bill requiring the state to collect data on how often jail inmates are denied mental health care.
- Advocates used the Landing’s reporting to beg the Texas Commission on Jail Standards to address conditions at the Harris County Jail.
Part One
Texans with mental illnesses are dying in Houston-area jails. They didn’t need to be there.
Rory Ward was one of more than 60 mentally ill people who died in the Harris County Jail between 2012 and 2022. His mom, Rowena, decorates his grave for every holiday. Rory will never age past 33.
The extent of the problem
Harris County has paid at least $4.5 million in settlements to inmates and their families since 2012. These settlements, which were mostly the result of lawsuits, stemmed from poor living conditions in the state’s largest jail, assault by employees and death.
Part one: The families
Part one: search our data
“De facto mental health warehouses”
Decades of under funding for community mental health programs has resulted in more mentally ill Texans cycling in and out of jail. Advocates say the lack of resources has made jails “de facto mental health warehouses.”
part one: continuing toll
part one: Search our data
Part two
Nearly 200 people with mental illnesses died in Texas jails. The death toll is getting worse.
Shamond Lewis died in Dallas County Jail custody in 2022, one of 38 mentally ill inmates who died of unnatural causes statewide that year. His family released balloons in his favorite park on his 25th birthday — their first without him.
Deaths of mentally ill inmates have increased 1,200 percent statewide since 2012.
“It’s like giving someone a loaded gun.”
Fred Harris was 19 when he was murdered in 2021 by a fellow Harris County Jail inmate. His killer was sentenced to 50 years in prison two years later. During the trial, his mom, Dallas Garcia, realized that the blame for her son’s death can be placed squarely on how the jail is run.
part two: the families
part two: Search our data
Part Three
This Harris County program serves the most vulnerable. But it won’t bail them out of jail.
Aaron Morris’ mom, Richelle, became a ward of Harris County when he was 7, but they remained close into adulthood. She’s now in a vegetative state after having a heart attack at the county jail in February 2023.
“ I won’t hear my mama’s voice no more. I can’t talk to my mom no more, I just miss my mom”
The Harris County Guardianship Program will not bail their wards out of jail if they are arrested, even though other programs across the state do. Aaron believes that if they had, his mom would not have had a heart attack — that she wouldn’t be in a vegetative state.
Aaron is married now, and living in Missouri. But he’s heartbroken that their children will never meet his mom. They plan to name their first daughter Richelle to keep his mom’s memory alive.
Part four
Uncounted: Harris County Jail failed to report inmate deaths, skirting state law
Walter Klein, 55, died after having a heart attack in the Harris County Jail. His family cracks open a beer at his grave every month to honor his life, something they feel the jail didn’t do by failing to report his death to the state.
“This could be viewed as circumventing the intent of the legislature and existing statutes.”
The Harris County Jail didn’t report Walter Klein’s death to the state because they released him from custody after he was taken to the hospital but before he died. It happens often enough statewide, that the regulatory agency for Texas jails has repeatedly flagged it as a problem for lawmakers to fix.
Because Walter’s death wasn’t reported to the state, it wasn’t investigated by an outside agency. So his wife, Lisa, is left to page through her husband’s files, trying to piece together what happened to him.
part four: continuing toll
Nearly 200 mentally ill Texans died in jails instead of getting the care they needed.
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