TPI Prison Data Explorer

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Complaint Responses Data

PREA Auditor Data

Data Explorer Introduction

TPI is in contact with many trans and queer persons in prison, primarily in Texas, but we also write to persons in other state prison systems as well as the federal prison system. Only a few persons in county jails and detention facilities write, probably due to shorter duration of their stays.

The data on this page is updated live as we add new data, so it is always current.

The first chart below shows the cumulative letters exchanged by quarter (three months). The second chart shows the number of letters sent and received each quarter.

Demographic Data

The set of charts in this section show demographic information for the persons with whom TPI has exchanged correspondence. The charts show race, age, gender, and sexual orientation. Note that we do not generally ask a person's sexual orientation, so most are listed as unknown.

These charts allow filtering via the filter tool on the left (below if you are using a phone or other small display), so all charts adjust to show counts for only records filtered. You may reset the filters by selecting the “Reset” button at the bottom of the filter tool.

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Violence Data

Note about COVID-19 data! If you would like to see the incidents we have recorded specifically related to COVID-19 responses, please click on the “Get All” button in the Filter selector below and to the left, then type “covid” without the quotes in the search box at the upper right corner of the table of violence incidents.

The charts below show the number and types of incidents of violence that have been reported to TPI. We record only incidents where we are fairly certain about the date and location of the incident, as well as having a general description of who contributed to the incident and basically what happened. We have reports of many more incidents for which we do not have sufficient data to log.

The initial bar chart shows 10 broad classes of incidents, and clicking on any bar will show the subtypes of those broad classes and will show a table of all incidents in that class. Note that for some incidents of violence we record a minimum number and maximum number for the quantity. This means that due to averaging and rounding, there can be some differences in the total incidents of a broad class and the combined counts for the subclasses. For example, someone reporting ongoing harassment from a guard may provide a description that indicates the number of instances of harassment could range from 5 to 25 (giving an incident count average for these charts of 15). The averaging in data compilation results in slight differences in totals, so some broad type totals will differ from the sum of the incident subtype counts.

These too may be filtered in various ways. Note also that year-to-year comparisons are not very informative because the number of people we receive reports from varies from year to year.

The “Reset” button resets all filters. A “Get All”button below the “Reset” button returns to the table all filtered records regardless of incident type or subtype. To get a table of every incident, clear or reset all filters, then get all records. Please be patient as the full table can take a few moments to download, and when loading a table after loading all incidents, the table can take a moment to reset. If you feel the page is not responding, simply reload the page. The search feature for the table provides word-level filtering of the records.

Definitions of the various types and subtypes of violence may be viewed in the data definitions section.

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PREA Data

Unit data for PREA auditors now available.

PREA (the Prison Rape Elimination Act) established standards for jails, prisons, community detention centers, juvenile facilities, and other facilities that are supposed to reduce the chance of sexual violence. The PREA Standards and other important information can be found at the PREA Resource Center, and the Texas Department of Criminal Justice PREA Ombudsman Office is responsible for implementing the standards, defined in the Safe Prisons/PREA Plan, in state facilities. For more information about problems with that implemtation, particularly as it pertains to trans and queer persons, please see TPI's report “I Don't Believe You, So You Might as Well Get Used to It”—The Myth of PREA Zero Tolerance in Texas Prisons, in the PREA Resource Center Digital Library.

PREA data is shown as total PREA-related incidents per prison facility or unit. Again, these data may be filtered by year, location, and source of violence.

Definitions of the various types and subtypes of violence may be viewed in the data definitions section.

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Data Definitions

The following tables provide our definitions for violence incident types and subtypes, as well as how we define PREA-related incidents as per the federal PREA standards.