The Tarrant County Commissioners Court unanimously voted on Wednesday to cancel its private jail contract with the Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility in Garza County after it purportedly failed to meet Texas jail standards.
The contract will end three months early this September. KERA News reported in January that the Texas Commission on Jail Standards found the correctional facility to be non-compliant as it found a lack of safety training and medical neglect.
Commissioner Manny Ramirez told KERA News, “It’s the best business decision to get out of a county a couple hundred miles away, and make sure that we can effectively guard prisoners that [are] supposed to be in Tarrant County.”
During public comment, representatives from United Fort Worth, Justice Network of Tarrant County, and Broadway Baptist Church Justice Committee spoke in opposition to the continuation of the private jail contract.
Harriet Harral from Broadway Baptist Church Justice Committee told The Dallas Express, “Recently, we learned they have been out of compliance with the Texas Commission on Jail Standards in six areas. Our contract requires that if they are out of compliance, they must immediately notify us. For six weeks, they did not notify us.”
The activists also called on the commissioners to let prisoners out of the Tarrant County jail, citing understaffing issues and taxpayer costs as the reason.
Reed Bills said during public comment, “We are asking for the county to adopt a policy of ‘decarceration.'”
Nan Terry of the Justice Network of Tarrant County told The Dallas Express, “The jail population in Tarrant County concerns me as a taxpayer. We’ve had 62 deaths since 2016. And … we are not given answers except for people dying. We led the state in inmate deaths in 2020.”
Not everyone in the audience was in favor of decarceration, however.
Citizens Defending Freedom Tarrant County director Rosalie Escobedo emphasized the importance of prioritizing public safety while trying to find solutions for the issues facing the Tarrant County jail.
Escobedo told The Dallas Express, “I attended the commissioners court to emphasize the critical importance of prioritizing public safety, justice, and lawfulness in the ongoing deliberations regarding the [Management & Training Corporation] contract failures. It is imperative that any decisions made affirm these principles and ensure that sentences are fairly meted out to uphold the well-being of law-abiding citizens.”
Crime has been an ongoing issue in North Texas, but especially in Dallas County, where District Attorney John Creuzot has been accused of being soft on crime, as previously reported by The Dallas Express.
Relatedly, Fort Worth’s city center has been tracking considerably less crime than Downtown Dallas, with the Dallas Police Department continuing to suffer from a significant officer shortage.
