Jail visitations resume after passed inspection

Hays County Sheriff Gary Cutler announced on-site visitation at the Hays County Jail resumed on March 22.

The announcement followed concerns about habitability from Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra and a resulting surprise visit by an inspector from the Texas Commission on Jail Standards (TCJS) on March 16. 

The inspection was called after Becerra attempted to review concerns from constituents himself, but he was not permitted access to the jail, due to COVID-19 protocols and ongoing construction. Becerra had received reports of broken walls and a putrid smell of swamp gas in jail cells, and the inability to flush toilets more than three time per hour, creating the smell of human waste and lack of airflow.

“I want those in the community that reach out to my office for support to know that I hear you and I take your concerns seriously,” said Becerra in a press release. “Rest, assured, I will look into them. It is unfortunate that this much effort needed to go into addressing the repairs of this taxpayer-funded county facility.”

Cutler told the Daily Record that they had submitted a COVID-19 plan to the local health department and were awaiting approval before they could submit it to TCJS, which was required for reopening the site to visitors. 

The inspection found one necessary repair which was addressed right away, no areas of non-compliance and no technical assistance required in the Hays County Jail, which is still under construction to complete an expansion that was approved by voters in a 2016 bond election.

“The positive results of this unannounced visit by a jail standards inspector is not a surprise to those of us who are familiar with the Hays County Jail staff,” Sheriff Gary Cutler said. “These employees work diligently each day to maintain a clean and safe jail, providing conditions that comply with every jail standard required by the state.”

The report said that there was noticeable construction in restricted areas where inmates do not have access; inmates were confined within their secured housing units. 

During a walkthrough of the original jail, no putrid smells were found by the inspector. After conducting inmate interviews in each living area, the report found that there were anti-flood flushing mechanisms which restrict the ability for constant flushing; three consecutive flushes are allowed before the safety device initiates.

The report said that inmates housed in the areas said that the system shortly resets itself, or they can let the control center know to manually reset the system to allow for flushing. “No issues were presented by the inhabitants of these housing units.”

The inspector found that in one housing unit, the timer set incorrectly and was only allowing the inhabitants to flush three times consecutively within an hour. Inspector Jon Luna wrote, “Jail administration and facility maintenance were on-site and were able to remedy the situation within minutes while this inspector was on-site. Despite the erroneous lavatory timer issue, there was no detected putrid smell within this, or any housing unit encountered by this inspector.”

Hays County Sheriff's Office Captain Julie Villalpando, who oversees jail operations, said, “Our staff’s mentality is that every day is an inspection. We clean, we repair, and we repeat.”

She continued, “The jail is a community of people that inhabit the facility 365 days a year. Just like a home, things sometimes wear out and need to be fixed. Our maintenance team works to keep things in the old building in working order. We are getting acclimated to the new expansion, which includes computer settings to avoid intentional flooding of cells.”

Villalpando said under Sheriff Cutler’s leadership, the jail has passed every inspection since 2010 when he first took office. She added that inspections are always unannounced.

A copy of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards report is available on the Hays County website.