The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is facing a unique challenge: finding a new home for a massive bat colony before they can demolish a vacant warehouse near its prison in Huntsville.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is facing a unique challenge with hundreds of thousands of bats taking over a decaying warehouse near the Huntsville prison.

A new state report says the prison population will outgrow capacity by the end of next year.

About 25% of Texas’ correctional officer positions are unfilled. Inmates say the shortages make it harder for them to get respite during hot summer months.

Jesus Villareal, 39, went missing from the Huntsville Unit on Sunday

Texas death row inmate Ruben Gutierrez was only 20 minutes away from being executed when the U.S. Supreme Court granted his request to stay his lethal injection at the state prison in Huntsville.

**ESCAPED INMATE** The Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice says Kidanny Robles, 33, was discovered missing from the Clemens Unit trusty camp in Angleton around midnight.

A federal lawsuit asserts that the Texas agency terminated a state prison clerk who refused to remove a head covering in line with her Ifa faith.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced it will have a delayed opening for several units and parole offices for non-essential staff members. This means the facilities will open at 10 a.m.

With the threat of another hot summer ahead, advocates asked a federal judge to declare 100-degree-plus conditions in uncooled Texas facilities unconstitutional.

An inmate has reportedly escaped from a Texas Department of Criminal Justice facility in Brazoria County.

An inmate who escaped custody in Brazoria County over the weekend with his mother’s help was captured in Matagorda County.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) is searching for an inmate who reportedly escaped from a prison in Brazoria County.

A correctional officer at the Wainwright prison in Houston County, Texas died on Monday after trying to help other officers restrain an inmate, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Authorities are searching for an inmate that escaped from the Clemens Unit in Brazoria, Texas, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

A federal judge has denied a request to stop the execution of a Texas inmate who had alleged in a lawsuit the drugs he's to be injected with next week were exposed to extreme heat and smoke during a recent fire, making them unsafe.

Why is the 23-year-old being moved from prison to prison? We are speaking exclusively to A.J.'s attorney about his safety concerns and where he will likely end up next.

An officer at a Texas jail was taken into custody Wednesday after he was found with gummies that tested positive for methamphetamine, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

The killing of inmate Billy Chemirmir in the Coffield Unit occurred during a statewide lockdown of prisons, promoted by a rise in inmate homicides. A day before the lockdown, another incident at the same prison resulted in the firings of seven correctional officers and the resignations of another six.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice said Tuesday that a Harris County convicted murderer is accused in the killing of a Texas serial killer.

Officials say a man accused of killing nearly two dozen elderly women and who was convicted last year in the slayings of two has been killed by his cellmate in a Texas prison.

Officials have announced that several TDCJ units will be able to return to normal operations following a recent lockdown.

The state has canceled all visits to Texas prison inmates until a comprehensive search of all 100 correctional facilities for contraband has been completed.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice announced Wednesday it is taking immediate action to address the rise in violence, contrabands and drug-related inmate homicides.

A woman was arrested during a jailhouse visit after she was found to be in possession of drugs on Aug. 6, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

Most Texas prisons lack air conditioning. At least 41 prisoners have died of heart-related or undetermined causes since the unrelenting heat wave began.

The seven-months-pregnant officer reported contraction-like pains at work, but said she wasn’t allowed to leave for hours. The anti-abortion state is fighting her lawsuit, in part by saying her fetus didn’t clearly have rights.

Management & Training Corporation had been accused of defrauding the state by charging for services it didn’t provide and directing prisoners to falsify paperwork about their treatment.

Texas prison officials say a 22-year-old inmate was captured about 250 miles from the prison he had escaped from hours earlier after climbing over a fence.

Three men listed on Texas’ 10 Most Wanted are now back in custody.

For more than a decade, Texas has been trying to slim down its youth prison system, which has been plagued by years of abuse scandals. This Legislature is reversing that course.

Stifling heat has killed inmates and exacerbated employee turnover in Texas prisons. But funding for air conditioning was whittled down in the draft budget released Thursday.

Moving the most violent and troubled youths to adult prison makes it easier to help others in juvenile facilities, some prosecutors and lawmakers say. Youth justice advocates say Texas is giving up on the children who most need help.

Joshua Keith Beasley Jr. had been transferred from a Texas youth facility to an adult prison despite a long history of suicidal behavior. Five guards and two supervisors allegedly failed to check on him.

A former assistant chief for the Cut and Shoot Police Department who was arrested and charged for sexually assaulting a child multiple times in 2021 has been sentenced to 20 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, according to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office.

In this week’s episode, Matthew speaks with Jolie about a hunger strike in Texas prisons and a lawsuit seeking to reform the use of solitary confinement on death row.

Men sentenced to death in Texas are held in isolation until their execution dates, with little human contact, medical care or legal help, according to a lawsuit filed to improve treatment of the condemned.

Prisoners have refused food to protest practices that have kept more than 500 people in isolation for more than a decade.

Fratta was convicted in the 1994 murder-for-hire of his wife. Lawyers are challenging Texas’ routine of extending the expiration dates of its lethal drugs, a practice begun when many pharmacies began refusing to provide doses for executions.

Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles (BPP) and Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) to investigate any lapses in the release and parole supervision of two men who were reportedly wearing ankle monitors while they committed murders, a news release from the governor’s office said.

Officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said they are searching for an out-of-place inmate at the Stiles Unit maximum security prison in Beaumont.

Investigative reviews by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice and independent consultants found the severely short-staffed prison routinely bypassed crucial security checks, leading to a convicted murderer’s escape.

Two reviews of the May escape of a Texas inmate that resulted in the deaths of five people found a multitude of security lapses such as inadequate strip searches and poorly applied restraints helped lead to his getaway.

A man who has spent the past four decades in prison for a crime he says he never committed was back in court Wednesday, surrounded by family and advocates, hoping for his exoneration.

Texas has executed an inmate for killing his mother and burying her body in her backyard nearly 20 years ago.

A divided Supreme Court has rejected an appeal from a Black Texas death row inmate who argued he didn’t get a fair trial because jurors who convicted him objected to interracial marriage.

A Texas death row inmate whose case clarified the role of spiritual advisers in death chambers nationwide has been executed, despite the efforts of a district attorney to stop his lethal injection.

The tables have turned for a jailer who was caught with contraband that was intended to be smuggled to prisoners, officials with the Texas Department of Criminal Justice said.

DNA has connected a Freeport woman to the 2005 double homicide of a couple who was found dead by their daughter inside the family’s Liberty County home, Texas Department of Public Safety officials said.

A new report says many Texas prison inmates fear dying or falling gravely ill from the hot weather and believe actions taken by officials to mitigate the dangerous conditions continue to fall short.

A Texas inmate who is set to be put to death in less than two weeks has asked that his execution be delayed so he can donate a kidney.

Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick called for the Texas Rangers to investigate how Gonzalo Lopez, a convicted murderer, was able to escape Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) custody, elude capture for 21 days, and perpetuate the brutal murder of Mark Collins and his four grandsons on June 2.

The review came after Gonzalo Lopez escaped on May 12 and eventually killed five people.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) will resume inmate transportation starting Monday, June 13 after temporarily stopping it to investigate how a convicted murderer escaped from a bus last month and allegedly killed a man and his four grandsons.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice confirmed Wednesday that the DNA that had been collected from a nearby cabin two days before the Collins family of five were killed came back after the murders.

The review comes after Gonzalo Lopez escaped from a prison bus last month. Authorities say he killed a family of five before they found and killed him.

The Texas prison system says it's temporarily stopped transporting inmates as it investigates how a convicted murderer escaped from a transport bus last month, later killing a man and his four grandsons.

Two correctional officers, a sergeant, and an inmate were transported to the hospital Tuesday morning after being involved in a crash with an intoxicated driver in Willis, authorities said.

Prison breaks are not just the stuff Hollywood writes movies about.

Officials from the Texas Department of Public Safety say that five people were found dead in Leon County near the area where escaped inmate Gonzalo Lopez was last seen in May. Lopez is believed to be tied to the murders, according to TxDPS.

Authorities say a Texas inmate who was serving a life sentence for murder when he escaped from a transport bus last week got out of his restraints and a caged area before stabbing the driver.

Abbott said the money would be taken from the budgets of other Texas agencies, including nearly $210 million from the state’s Health and Human Services Commission over two years and about $160 million from the Texas Department of Public Safety.

Two of Texas’ 10 Most Wanted Sex Offenders are back in custody after their arrests last week, DPS announced Wednesday.

The latest Texas execution protocols forbid spiritual advisers from praying aloud or touching prisoners as the prisoners are killed. Some members of the high court said they feared overturning the rules would lead to a flood of requests for other religious accommodations during executions.

After halting three Texas executions because of limits placed on spiritual advisers in the death chamber, the high court will hear arguments today over what religious rights the state must accord inmates as it kills them.

A Texas death row inmate has won a reprieve from execution for killing a convenience store worker during a 2004 robbery that garnered $1.25.

A Texas death row inmate has won a reprieve from execution for killing a convenience store worker during a 2004 robbery that garnered $1.25.

A Texas death-row inmate has sued state prison officials to allow his pastor to lay hands on him as he dies from a lethal injection.

A Texas death-row inmate has sued state prison officials to allow his pastor to lay hands on him as he dies from a lethal injection.

A woman who set up her family member to be kidnapped and held for ransom has been sentenced to serve 45 years in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

While many Texas prisons are understaffed, some dangerously so, the emptied-out Briscoe Unit in Dilley is in "maintenance mode" as officials scramble to implement the governor's plan to increase the state's role in border enforcement.

Gov. Greg Abbott has directed the Texas Department of Criminal Justice to move prisoners from the Briscoe Unit in Dilley to make room for migrants crossing the border unlawfully and who have committed a state or federal crime.

The prison — Dolph Briscoe Unit in Dilley — will have capacity for about 1,000 people.

The longest serving death row inmate in the U.S. has been resentenced to life in prison after prosecutors concluded he's ineligible for execution and not competent for retrial due to his long history of mental illness.

Legal and death penalty experts worry an execution without media watching how Texas officials administered a lethal injection against a condemned inmate is another example of a lack of transparency and competency in how the death penalty is carried out in the U.S. The Texas Department of Criminal Justice is continuing their investigation in Wednesday’s execution, but so far are blaming miscommunication.

A Texas man convicted of fatally beating his 83-year-old great aunt more than two decades ago was executed Wednesday evening without media witnesses present because prison agency officials neglected to notify reporters it was time to carry out the punishment.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice released its new protocols for allowing spiritual advisors to be present in the execution chamber at the time of an inmate’s death. This reversal comes two years after TDCJ halted the practice.

Two years after the Texas prison system barred all spiritual advisers from the state’s death chamber, the agency has reversed course.

Last year, the Texas prison system unwittingly started a controlled experiment. The main source of the drugs, according to more than a dozen people who lived or worked in Texas prisons over the past year: low-paid employees in understaffed facilities. … It’s so easy to get it in.”She asked not to be named for fear of retaliation from the prison agency. Texas prison officers start at a salary of about $36,000; the maximum is less than $45,000. AdA perennial problemFrom shanks to phones to drugs, contraband of all types has been a perennial source of consternation for Texas prison officials.

TEXAS – Texas prisoners over the age of 65 and with health conditions started receiving vaccinations in late February, months after many of them were eligible, according to a statement Thursday from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. Almost 2,000 vaccine doses have gone to qualifying prisoners as of Thursday, according to the statement. TDCJ did not provide information on the split between first and second doses or how many prisoners have received shots. No vaccines were wasted.”AdEarlier this year, the Texas prison system refused to provide information on when its vulnerable populations would start being immunized, despite receiving thousands of doses. Texas announced that all adults would be eligible for the vaccine starting next Monday.

Credit: Sergio Flores for The Texas TribuneNeed to stay updated on coronavirus news in Texas? Before entering a state prison or jail, visitors will need to test negative on a rapid results coronavirus test, similar to at the protocol at the Texas Capitol. About 300 TDCJ inmates have died after contracting the virus, according to the Texas Justice Initiative. Recently, the agency has reported a decrease in the number of inmates and staff testing positive for the coronavirus. Those already on visitation lists may begin scheduling visits starting Wednesday by directly calling the prison or jail.

AdOf the 8,900 doses the state has reportedly allocated to 66 TDCJ lockups so far, the prisons’ health care partners had administered 5,562 doses by Monday, an agency spokesperson said. Officials first injected health care workers in the prisons, following guidance from the state health department. Jeff Ormsby, the executive director of Texas prisons’ American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees branch, said correctional employees in hospital settings are starting to be vaccinated. Phase 1A includes front-line health care workers and nursing home residents. “Doing the officers first could help in showing [inmates], ‘Hey, we need to do this,’” said Terra Tucker, the Texas state director at Alliance for Safety and Justice.

Texas’ prisons and jails have been coronavirus hot spots throughout the pandemic. At least about 200 Texas inmates have died with COVID-19. But it’s unclear when the still-limited doses of virus vaccines will be made available to the more than 186,000 people detained in Texas prisons and jails. In Texas, health care workers and people in long-term care facilities like nursing homes are at the front of the line to receive the vaccine. She faults the eroded relationships between prison medical staff and inmates and the rumor mill that can spread misinformation as quickly as the virus.

The bid from the Texas Department of Criminal Justice was quite a bit lower than the next highest bid and that’s what caught the attention of City Council Members Abbie Kamin and Carolyn Evans-Shabazz. Pandemic places greater strain on Houston Food BankThe need for food from the Houston Food Bank has doubled since the start of the Pandemic from 400-thousand pounds a day to now 800 thousand pounds. Nicole Lander is the Chief Impact Officer for the Houston Food Bank and says the community has stepped up in a big way. “Obviously media literacy is something that can be taught, and based on our own experiment we’ve noticed that people who read about it or even watch videos on it, they actually improve their tendency to notice fake news better.” Helen Bouygues with much on Houston Newsmakers and in this week’s Houston Newsmakers EXTRA! More Information:Abbie Kamin, Houston City Council, District CCarolyn Evans-Shabazz, Houston City Council, District DNicole Lander, Chief Impact Officer, Houston Food BankHelen Lee Bouygues, President, Founder Reboot Foundation

“But that’s the lowest prison population for TDCJ since 1995.”The closure of Scott, Gurney and Neal will bring the Texas prison system down to a total of 101 state lockups, Desel said. Many prison units are short hundreds of officers, and several are less than 50% staffed. For Gurney and Neal, which will be idled, the units are themselves woefully understaffed, and officers are especially needed at neighboring prisons. During the pandemic, understaffed prisons have often rotated employees among multiple units to try to fill shifts, potentially cross-contaminating the lockups where the coronavirus spreads like wildfire. Still, she worried about the virus’ spread as prison units combine.

Incarcerated men at the Telford Unit, a prison in New Boston Texas near the Oklahoma border, have suffered 9% of the reported prison COVID-19 deaths in Texas prisons. There are now 629 active cases of the virus there, nearly half of the prison’s population, TDCJ data shows. People older than 55 years old make up over 80% of COVID-19 prison deaths in the state, the report said. Just seven of the more than 100 TDCJ facilities make up 58% of all the prison deaths from COVID-19. In one geriatric prison located two hours northeast of Houston in Angelina County, 19 people or almost 6% of the entire prison population has died.

At least 231 inmates and staff members have died of COVID-19 in Texas prisons and jails, according to the report by the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas. Other states that started off with a higher number of COVID-19 prison deaths have been dramatically more successful in reducing deaths than Texas, the study found. Seven out of the 106 prisons in the Texas system account for over half of the COVID-19 deaths in prison in Texas. Almost 6% of the inmate population at the Duncan Unit geriatric prison near Lufkin in East Texas has died of COVID-19, and more than 80% of the COVID-19 Texas prison fatalities were over age 55, the report states. Twenty-one prison inmates died behind bars with less than two years left to serve on their sentences.

Birds fly overhead at the Hilltop prison unit in Gatesville, Texas. A federal appeals court has temporarily blocked a lower court’s order that would require Texas to provide more protective measures against the coronavirus at a geriatric prison, like giving hand sanitizer to inmates who use wheelchairs. Two dozen Texas prison employees have also died with the virus. TDCJ appealed the ruling, having argued that it had many protective measures in place already, and hand sanitizer could be used to drink or start fires. Inmates’ attorneys said the concerns were “disingenuous,” as fires are not a problem at the prison and inmates have plenty of other flammable material, like paper.

A federal judge ordered the Texas prison system on Tuesday to provide more protective measures against the coronavirus, like hand sanitizer for wheelchair-bound prisoners, at a prison for geriatric inmates. Texas has had more inmate deaths related to the coronavirus than any other prison system in the nation. Its death toll of at least 162 inmates outranks every other state as well as the federal prison system. More than 20 Texas prison employees have also died with the virus. The trial included testimony from several inmates, TDCJ officials and experts on health and prison conditions.

The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed the death sentence that Guevara had faced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. The Texas Court of Criminal Appeals changed the death sentence that Gilmar Guevara had faced to life in prison. The ruling follows the appeals court's decision last week to resentence another Texas death row inmate, Juan Lizcano, to life in prison because he was also found to be intellectually disabled. The Texas appeals court's decisions in the two cases follows a U.S. Supreme Court ruling in 2017 that eventually changed the way Texas determines whether a defendant is intellectually disabled and thus ineligible for execution. The Supreme Court in 2002 barred the execution of intellectually disabled people, but it has given states some discretion to decide how to determine such disabilities.

Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the new coronavirus than any other state prison system in America. During that time, Texas has seen more state prisoners die with the virus than any other state prison system in America. Some of these people were eligible [for release] months and months and months ago, and theyre still there, said Jorge Renaud, southwest regional director of policy and advocacy for LatinoJustice, one of the advocacy groups. At least 94 have died with it, the highest death toll in the country among state prison systems. To try to hasten his homecoming, Boyd informed the parole board that her 41-year-old son had already completed the program months earlier.

Two Texas prisons each have more than 670 inmates with active coronavirus infections, according to the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, the highest counts seen at any state lockup since the pandemic began. At the massive Coffield Unit in East Texas, 753 inmates recently tested positive — 19% of prisoners there, according to TDCJ data. Aside from Stiles, three other state-run prisons and jails had at least 25% of their inmates with active coronavirus infections Monday. Since March, more than 12,000 Texas prisoners and 2,100 TDCJ employees at dozens of prisons have had confirmed infections of the new coronavirus. TDCJ began testing all inmates at dozens of units in mid-May, with more than 100,000 coronavirus tests on inmates completed by June 10, according to agency reports.

James Allen Smith, 73, died after contracting the coronavirus in a Texas prison. Instead of coming home to his family after completing a short program, Smith died in prison custody on June 11. But early prison release decisions in Texas fall to the Texas Board of Pardons and Paroles, whose members are appointed by the governor. Deadly prison sentencesAfter entering the state prison system, Smith landed at the Estelle Unit in Huntsville for his rehab program shortly before the coronavirus shut down prison visitation and intake from jails. Of the inmates with COVID-19 who died, Smith was supposed to spend the shortest amount of time in prison.

TJJD/Bob DaemmrichAfter 17 young people tested positive for the coronavirus inside Texas state-run juvenile lockups, the Texas Juvenile Justice Department said Wednesday it will test all detainees and staff. Only two employees tested positive in April and May, according to agency news releases. But last month, 28 more employees and the 17 detainees also tested positive for the virus at four of the states juvenile lockups. The youth were all being treated at the lockups, TJJD said in a Tuesday news release. Sean Wilson, 43, worked at the Giddings State School and died on June 28 after testing positive for the virus the week before.

Shelby Knowles for The Texas TribuneStarting July 1, the Texas prison system will again accept inmates from county jails on a limited basis after halting intake three months ago due to the coronavirus pandemic. As of Monday, TDCJ has completed more than 100,000 coronavirus tests on state prisoners, according to prison data. The state prison system stopped intake of people in county jails who had been sentenced to prison in April, after at least 10 county jails reported the virus in their lockups and Texas prisons had nearly 200 cases. By halting intake from counties, the state prison population dropped from about 140,000 inmates in March to about 131,000 in May, according to state reports. In May, the Bexar County Sheriff's Office asked the state for $468,000 to reimburse jail costs for holding TDCJ-ready inmates, according to KSAT.

Prison staff and inmates move through the Darrington Unit's main hallway on Wednesday, July 12, 2017. The appeals judges noted that many of the district judges orders had already been met by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. At least five have died from the virus, a states attorney said during a hearing in front of the appeals court judges last week. Inmates countered, and the district judge agreed, that court intervention was needed to protect them from the prison's apparent "deliberate indifference" to inmates' risk. Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton applauded the appeals court ruling Friday, saying in a statement that the district court's order reflected "outdated guidance" from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.