Are Inmates at the Harris County Jail Well Served? History of Harris Co. Jail

Harris County’s primary detention facility is located in the heart of Houston. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office (H.C.S.O.) manages this facility, located in the northern part of Downtown on a peninsula created by Buffalo Bayou. The majority of the facility is modeled on Harris County prisons. However, the Joe Kegan’s State Jail is also housed there. In close proximity to the Harris County Detention Center lies the Harris County District Court. We will get all the information about the jail only after reading the history of Harris Co. Jail.

What Facilities are there for prisoners?

There are three county prisons plus the Joe Kegan’s State Jail that compensate Harris County’s jail complex.

The 1200 Jail opened on January 23, 2003. It houses the Sheriff’s Department’s administration offices. The building comprises 603,000 square feet of space and a 93,000-square-foot parking garage. The facility includes 4,156 ordinary beds, 124 for the Medical Division, and 96 for M.H.M.R.A. It’s one football field wide and two long. 430 policemen work at the institution. The center classifies inmates. Each level offers counseling, M.H.M.R.A. exam/interview, multi-purpose, leisure, and triage facilities. Fourth-floor woman. Sixth floor: legal library, vocational rooms. The 1200 Jail has a medical clinic, dental facility, infirmary, mental health facilities, pharmacy, and x-ray facility.

The seven-story 701 Jail (701 North San Jacinto Street) has 4,144 prisoner beds. The 701 Jail started in the 1920s as a five-story cold storage warehouse. Houston Terminal Warehouse and Cold Storage were always busy. The country’s new prison was designed in 1989. The cold storage component was allowed to thaw, and the building began in December of that year. The structure was gutted, and two stories were built. The 701 Jail opened in August 1991. Harris County said that the re-use of the warehouse saved the county roughly $21,000,000. There are 600 sheriff’s deputies and detention officers. The county designated the 701 Jail as a “Direct Observation” institution, where personnel monitors detainees 24 hours per day, 7 days per week. In 2002, the 701 Jail was the second biggest American jail, after the Los Angeles County Men’s Central Jail.

The 1307 Jail (1307 Baker Street, east of the 701 Jail, was initially erected as a state jail for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The Harris County Sheriff’s Office has leased the building since 1998. Two wings house 1,070 inmates. This county jail has a “Semi-Direct Observation,” where personnel monitors inmates 24 hours a day, seven days a week. 112 sheriff’s deputies and detention officers work in the facility. The jail’s Farm Shop is where the sheriff keeps wayward cattle.

Are they provide any former facilities?

1301 Franklin opened in 1982 with 79,000 square feet. The county erected the jail after the 1980s Alberti lawsuit. The 13-story jail housed H.C.S.O.’s administrative offices. The prison opened in 1982 and could hold 4,000 convicts. The previous Franklin jail closed on January 23, 2003, when the 1200 Jail opened. The facility houses the H.C.S.O.’s Crime Scene Unit, E.D.C., Warrants, and A.F.I.S.

Former Prison 301 San Jacinto. H.C.S.O.’s headquarters were on the 3rd floor until 1982. Inmates occupied three levels—basement booking, kitchen, laundry, and releasing. Commissary was on a housing floor. The Alberti case led to new prisons. The building’s upper four stories housed 400 trustees in 2002. Administrative offices, court processing/holding cells, and visitor facilities were in the basement. Capacity was 409.

Are there any other facilities?

• Pretrial detention Scan

The Harris County, Jail’s official website for the general public features a PDF version of the regularly updated Inmate Roaster. Here are some facts about the criminals that are currently housed in Harris County Jail, courtesy of The Inmate Roaster:

Charges
What is the inmate’s full name is
Date Reserved
An Up-Front Mugshot

• Delivering Mail or a Package

Inmates at the Harris County Jail are allowed to receive legal mail and approved care items. Prisoners are permitted to receive letters, cards, magazines, newspapers, envelopes, and books. Supplies, including clothing, food, and medicine, are included in care packages. These, however, undergo rigorous testing before they reach their intended recipients.

It is usually a good idea to contact ahead to see if your shipment is acceptable before sending it to the Harris County Jail.

Be sure to put the following at the top of the envelope:

Complete First and Last Name of Prisoner

Mailing Address: 1200 Baker Street, Houston, TX 77002

• Transferring Funds

Money sent to convicts by friends and family can be put into commissary accounts at the Harris County Jail. In addition, if an inmate has cash on them when they are taken into custody, they can put that amount into their commissary accounts.

You have two options for getting money to a prisoner in Harris County Jail:

Visitors can use cash, credit cards, or debit cards to deposit funds at the lobby kiosk.
With JailATM.com and a credit or debit card, you may send money online, too.

• Communicating Via Telephone

Inmates at the Harris County Jail are permitted to make and receive telephone calls. Collect calls allow an inmate to communicate with loved ones outside of jail but at the expense of the person making the call. In addition to regular phones, the Harris County Jail has Prodigy Inmate Phones, which the inmates may use to make calls to the outside world using money from their cafeteria accounts.

• Weekend visits

Inmates of the Harris County Jail are allowed visitors between the hours of 7:30 a.m. and 9:00 p.m. during the week and between 7:30 a.m. and 2:30 p.m. on weekends. Only 15 minutes are allotted for each visit. The inmate must fill out a visitation list when they are booked and processed into the Harris County Jail, and only those people who appear on that list are allowed to see them. Once every month, convicts are given the opportunity to make changes to their approved visitor list.

 

More information about Harris County Jail will keep coming in the future. If you don’t want to miss out on them, stay tuned to unitedfact.com