Criminal justice advocates want nearly 500 Texas inmates certified in a class action lawsuit against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, alleging the state’s prison system is assigning inmates to punitive, unsanitary housing for longer than allowed.
In a petition Monday, the Texas Civil Rights Project alleged the state's prison system keeps inmates in higher-security housing units for much longer than the 10 year-expiration date while some live in unsanitary conditions that include flooding with raw sewage, pest infestations and other health and safety risks. Others remain in their cells anywhere from 20-24 hours a day, the lawsuit said.
The group accused TDCJ of assigning the housing in a “rote, automatic process,” not notifying some inmates when they’ve been reassigned to higher security housing or not allowing them access to the proper appeal process, in violation of their constitutional due process rights.
“There's just no meaningful review of these codes," said Randy Hiroshige, a TCRP staff attorney on the case. "It seems like TDCJ is just like, 'let's place it, and now you're stuck with it,' and then these people just get pushed to the margins and placed in punitive custody."
TDCJ assigns inmates with a history of certain security incidents with Security Precaution Designators or codes. This requires incarcerated people to reside in high security wings, with administrative segregation or solitary confinement being the most restrictive. These include codes for previous attempts to escape custody (ES), one for a history of taking individuals hostage (HS) and one for a history of seriously assaulting staff (SA).
TDCJ rules state if 10 years have passed, an “offender is no longer considered an immediate security risk” and the corresponding code can be removed from their record unless “extraordinary circumstances exist.” But TCRP alleged nearly a third of inmates with ES, HS or SA codes have been assigned those codes for more than 10 years, some without proper review for removal.
The federal suit originated in 2021 with plaintiffs including Curtis Allen Gambill representing themselves. Gambill escaped from a county jail in 2002, was retroactively assigned a code and put in solitary confinement.
After later being confirmed as a gang member, he was to remain in solitary confinement indefinitely without a chance to renounce his gang affiliation through a mandatory TDCJ program that would let him to do so. Because of that, the suit says, he spent 14 years in solitary confinement and 22 years total with a code on his record.
Other plaintiffs include a man who was allegedly told by a warden he’d “never get an SPD removal” and another who’s had his code for 17 years and allegedly hasn’t been able to access the programs necessary to allow him parole.
The state argued the plaintiffs fail to prove the SPD code system goes to the extent of violating inmates’ rights under the Constitution. A TDCJ spokesperson said in an email to KERA News the agency does not comment on pending litigation.
Hiroshige said TCRP believes strongly in its class action motion.
"The more we've learned about TDCJ, the more we've learned that its abuses of the system are pretty uniform across across every unit," he said.
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