Tarrant County will move 432 inmates from its county jail to a privately owned prison in Garza County, 38 miles southeast of Lubbock and 270 miles from Fort Worth.
The Tarrant County Commissioners Court approved an $18 million contract with the Giles W. Dalby Correctional Facility in the city of Post on Tuesday, citing the need to move inmates because of overcrowding, understaffing, and planned maintenance in 2023.
The maintenance, scheduled for July 2023, will require the jail to temporarily eliminate 400 to 500 beds, county administrator G.K. Maenius said.
Similarly, Harris County commissioner’s simultaneously approved a contract to spend $25 million to send 600 of its inmates to the Garza County facility because of overcrowding in its jails.
The jail in Post is owned by Management & Training Corp., a Utah-based contractor that manages private prisons.
Tarrant County Sheriff Bill Waybourn oversees the operations of the Tarrant County Jail. He told commissioners before the vote that he is desperate for more jail beds, saying many of the inmates housed in the county jail are convicted on state charges.
“We are tipping the scales of having all of our beds taken up,” said Waybourn.
Waybourn and jail officials lobbied commissioners to approve the plan to move the inmates to the correctional facility in Garza County.
“If we don’t get this contract, then we’re going to have to figure out some other remedies for what we do with prisoners. And that can get fairly serious, fairly quick,” Waybourn said.
Tarrant County chose the Garza County jail because it was available, Sheriff Waybourn said, adding that the county also considered sending inmates to Louisiana. Waybourn continued that his jail staff is overworked, with mandatory overtime weekly.
Jail officials emphasized before the commissioner’s court that the problems at Tarrant County Jail with staffing and capacity are part of a more significant problem across the state.
Several residents urged commissioners to reject the proposal, expressing concerns about the jail’s private nature. Commissioner Roy Brooks, too, shared similar concerns.
“Private jails philosophically give me a great deal of heartburn,” said Brooks. “Because their motive is not safety, not health, not rehabilitation, none of those things are part of their business model,” Brooks added that he believed the $18 million plan would do nothing to solve the problems with overcrowding and staffing in Tarrant County.
Brooks and commissioner Devan Allen voted against the proposal. County Judge Glen Whitley and commissioners Gary Fickes and J.D. Johnson voted for it.
Garza County Judge Lee Norman told Fox 34 that the inmates from Harris and Tarrant counties would start arriving sometime around the October 1 timeframe.
