After another annual inspection, the Hockley County Jail has continued to uphold their high standards when it comes to operation. For every county jail within the state of Texas, an annual inspection of each facility and how well the county is conducting business is looked at by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. For Sheriff Ray Scifres, the Hockley County Jail and his employees have had a spotless record since his arrival. “Commission on jail standards is a state regulatory body,” said Scifres. “We, the county and the commissioners own this building and the jail.”
Part of his constitutional and statutory responsibility is to be the keeper of the prisoner and the keeper of the peace as the chief law enforcement officer or chief peace officer in the county. “On the other side of that coin is to operate a safe secure facility in accordance with the Commission on Jail Standards,” explained Scifres. “Every legislative session or in between sessions, they take up new standards. They basically dictate sanitation, health, welfare, general well-being of the inmates that are in our charge.” For the county jail this includes inmate rights and responsibilities that must be tended to. The commission essentially informs county jails and their employees on how that’s going, and they control everything and oversee everything from instruction, renovation to maintenance.
Scifres says that the commission recently has six or eight standards that were up for debate, negotiation, and finalization.
Those talks stem from input from work groups that include practionners, jail administrators, sheriff’s and other interested parties who want to have a say in how those standards are formed and what they look like at the local level.
To be more involved in those discussion, Scifres has become a part of the Jail Advisory Committee for Sheriff’s Association.
“Part of what the committee focuses on is how we can address various topics the best way and how we communicate that with the with the commission and maintain that partnership,” said Scifres. “Along with those discussions we can assist and make connections between some sheriffs. We can help make those connections and provide advice whenever it may come up.”
Since 2010, Scifres says the Hockley County has remained compliant through their annual inspections.
“There was one inspection in the summer of 2010 that was noncompliant,” said Scifres. “They had another one that fall in October of 2010. I had just been hired here in June or July of 2010 and the day I interviewed for my job the jail inspector was here.”
For a jail the size of Hockley County’s, the inspector spends most of the day conducting his necessary duties. Scifres says the inspector will arrive about 8 a.m. in the morning and will be there until around 4 p.m. “The inspector will interview inmates, interview staff members to look at best practices and policies,” explained Scifres. “The inspector will see if you’re abiding by your written policy and make sure you do know your written policy. They will check to see if you know the jail standard and know how those are put together.”
Verifying information regarding times, logs and inmate interaction are some of the biggest things the commission inspector will look over.
Sheriff Scifres stressed that the record chuck cannot be ‘pencil whipped’ because of the record check that is done.
“When they do a record check for our documentation, they look at everything from how often we lay eyeballs physically on an inmate and it has to be documented,” explained Scifres.
“Depending on their housing status and where they’re located, you have to see them physically every 30 minutes or every hour.”
For the jail, the county has a linear design which mean it is an indirect jail according to Scifres. There are two holding cells in the front including a padded cell or the “violent cell.” Additionally, down the hallway, there are 14 individual cells that are administrative separation. Beyond that point, there is a crash gate. Behind that gate is all the jails general housing areas or multi-occupancy areas. There are two 16 bed housing areas and two 8 bed housing areas. With those two different sections in the jail, Scifres explained that observation is different on inmates who in administrative separation or who are in single cells. That also includes the highrisk area or padded cell. Those inmates are seen every 30 minutes while the inmates in the very back of the jail are seen every hour to complete checks. “Our folks are constantly roaming, talking to inmates and actually observing what’s going on,” said Scifres. “Those interactions have to be documented including our meals that are looked at. Our menus that have to be approved by a dietitian.” The county goes contracts out a food service company to handle the menus for the jail. Each meal is required a minimum of 2,500 calories by the commission. Scifres says the meals given to the inmates are a little more than theminimum. “Along with having those things checked, our fire system, fire panels, smoke systems and any kind of suppression that we may have in the building are all checked,” said Scifres. “They check our backup generators to make sure that if power goes down to the city the generator kicks on within seconds so that we still have power to the facility to maintain heat. We have to maintain our plumbing systems, so all of those things are regulated.”
For employee conduct and other factors looked into when an inspection is done, the main focus for the jail is the upkeep of the facilities.
“From our perspective we have an aging facility that will be 40-years-old next year,” said Scifres. “Our main issue is making sure that our plumbing and our and our water systems are working because that’s typically where some of the issues have been.”
On the employee side of the inspection, properly noted logs are essential.
“The person inspecting the logs and video can say they want us to go back and find this specific day at a specific time and they need to see a jailer at that cell at that moment it says it is logged,” explained Scifres. “There is a 60 second window within that minute, but this is to make sure that people aren’t pencil whipping documents.”
For the jails video system, they must retain all video for 30 days minimum. Currently, the facility retains 40 to 41 days of video retention.
“At the end of this inspection they were very pleased with everything, and I think it’s got less to do with the age of the facility but how we maintain it and how we take care of our inmates in our custody,” said Scifres. “They are even interviewed and asked what they think about this, what happens when this happens, what happens when this occurs or when we have a leak in your sink what do they do.”
The county has had the same inspector for a handful of yours during Scifres’s time as sheriff. However, there have been two or three others that have been pleased when they made the visit to the facility.
“They all look for the same basic things, but they look at it from different eyeballs and different levels of experience,” explained Scifres. “We’ve been in good standing with them regardless of the inspector. I think the director could come down here and look at our jail and we would be okay.”
For the sheriff’s office, it requires a lot of hands-on-deck to make the jail operational at a high level while also keeping the peace on the streets.
The department has two divisions which include the law enforcement side of the business and the detention side of the business.
On the law enforcement side, the way the portion of the department was laid out was restructured when Scifres took over. The goal was to get more cars on the road so the administrator position from the office was removed.
In that restructuring, Scifres now has a Law Enforcement Captain, Lieutenant, Investigators and Deputies.
On the jail side, there is jail captain who is also the jail administrator, jail lieutenant who is responsible for medical records and inmate transport. The records clerk works directly with the jail lieutenant. There is a transport officer who handles the moving and deliver of inmates.
Every shift includes four shifts and has a Sergeant. There are two other officers on the floor as the commission mandates that the staffing ratio is 1:48.
For every 48 inmates there has to be one staff member and the average daily housing is over closer to the 50 for Hockley County.
“It’s a lot even for two people to keep up with,” explained Scifres. “We have a few openings we’re hiring for and I think we’ve got three in the pipeline that are ready to start the next couple of weeks.”
For other facilities, there are a few that are not in good standing with the commission. Currently, 25 county jails within the state are non-compliant with a handful failing multiple inspections.
“When they come in and say somebody is put out of compliance, there are some things that will make it automatic such as a safety issue,” said Scifres. “The commission can give you a what’s called technical assistance on some things. We document that there was a problem, fix it and show them that it is good.”
Given those circumstances the non-compliance result is not exactly a failure. However, it must be addressed in a quick and efficient manner.
“I don’t remember the last time I saw that man non-compliant facilities,” said Scifres. “Even a quarter ago the number was a little high, but this is the highest I’ve seen them in a little bit.”
In order to address being non-compliant, a written plan to the commission must be presented along with showing what the problem was and how it has been fixed. Supporting documentation through the entire process must be available as well.
Once everything is sorted out, the commission inspector will revisit the jail and look at what needed to be fixed. Scifres also added that under new guidelines that has changed the reinspection process.
Approximately, 25 percent of the reinspection’s will be full inspections. If a facility fails the second inspection, the commission will politely request the sheriff and the county judge to make a trip to Austin to see what can be done to sort out the issue.
The commission board consists of nine members who were appointed by the Governor to sever six-year terms in a staggered manner.