This is the second time in the past year the jail has been found to be out of compliance with state standards.
BEXAR COUNTY, Texas — The Bexar County jail was deemed noncompliant with multiple state standards, county officials say, after a recent unannounced inspection in July.
The county was notified by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) on Tuesday that the west-side facility would be considered out of compliance, according to documents provided to Bexar County leaders. The news comes a week after TCJS arrived for an unannounced inspection of the Bexar County Adult Detention Center “as part of their oversight responsibilities,” BCSO said.
According to documents provided by TCJS, the inspection was conducted July 22-24 and found infrastructural deficiencies as well as instances where inmates weren’t provided access to the jail’s “dayroom,” or common area.
In one part of the inspection, TCJS reported that four mirrors in one cell area’s bathroom were “scratched to the point where one could not see oneself.”
At another point, during a fire drill, TCJS inspectors said a “faulty motor” prevented a fan from operating when artificial smoke was deployed to test the equipment. That motor, inspectors noted, was replaced on the spot.
Upon reviewing random inmate files, the team also found that 56 people jailed at the facility didn’t have access to the dayroom a combined 88 times during a seven-day period in June. That discovery came after the team found one inmate was prevented from accessing the common area for 22 days out of a 97-day period in the spring.
Jail administrators are required to provide inmates with access to the common area for at least one hour a day.
BCSO has until Aug. 28 to provide a plan of action to fix the substandard mirrors and to outline “how inmates will be provided access to the dayroom area for the required one hour each day.”
The Bexar County jail was last found to be out of compliance last November, related to recent in-custody deaths. The county announced it returned to compliance by Dec. 31.