TPI is posting advocacy letters we have written to provide examples of violence against persons in prison, primarily against trans and queer persons in Texas prisons. Personal identifying information has been removed for all incarcerated persons, and named staff or other persons causing harm is removed on a case by case basis.
Content warning: Some of these letters describe threats and incidents of violence that may be disturbing. We will note whether each letter is considered a low, moderate, or high risk for being disturbing. We consider this letter to be moderate risk.
TPI tries to respond immediately to death threats, in this case threats against the life of a gay man due to his sexual orientation. Enhancing our concern in this case was that the report came from Telford Unit, in northeast Texas, which TPI considers one of the worst units in the TDCJ system for trans and queer persons. It is not uncommon for staff and administration at Telford to take actions that increase the endangerment of anyone who is trans or queer.
In this case, a person reported receiving multiple kites, or notes, threatening his life due to his sexual orientation at some point around or before the end of March 2022. The subject of the complaint had filed for an Inmate Protection Investigation (IPI), which is supposed to identify endangerment. As is common at Telford and throughout TDCJ, the IPI was “unsubstantiated,” which means they claim there was less than a 50/50 chance that the report of endangerment was true.
The subject was ordered to be housed back where he reported endangerment, then filed for another IPI in early April. That IPI too was “unsubstantiated.” Fortunately the subject was transferred the day after the second IPI was filed.
A transfer can take weeks if not months in TDCJ. A transfer has to be recommended by the unit, then approved by the State Classification Committee. That the transfer happened almost immediately indicates it was done as an expedited action in response to some sort of emergency circumstances. In cases such as this, no one should believe the report that an investigation was appropriately determined to be “unsubstantiated”; these expedited transfers do not happen when there is not a serious threat of endangerment and harm.
In the 2021 Texas legislative session, HB 1598 and SB 1980 proposed creating a new independent ombudsman office separate from TDCJ as an oversight agency. TDCJ seems to have responded by creating their own “independent” ombudsman office, which we are directly addressing in this letter, probably to make the argument that an actual independent agency is not needed because they already have a supposedly independent oversight group. Nothing could be further from the truth. Most of TPI’s responses from the “independent” ombudsman simply repeat the findings (and excuses) of staff at the units where the incidents occurred.