This is the first time Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Brandon Wood has heard of a jail using \u201ca temp service-type model,\u201d he told KERA News.<\/p>\n
Wood\u2019s agency makes sure jails run according to state rules. Contract jailers will be subject to the same requirements as Tarrant County-employed jailers, he said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe won\u2019t differentiate between the two,\u201d he said. \u201cWe\u2019re just going to ensure that Tarrant County is meeting the minimum standards that\u2019s required.\u201d<\/p>\n
As of last year, jailers were making up for the vacancies by working\u00a0a minimum of 52 hours a week,<\/a>\u00a0and overtime costs are rising.<\/p>\n As of September, overtime salaries for the confinement bureau in fiscal year 2025 totaled $17.2 million, county budget documents show. That\u2019s up from $16.4 million in 2024 and $14.1 million in 2023.<\/p>\n Incarcerated people feel the consequences of understaffing, too. There aren\u2019t enough detention officers to transport them to off-site medical visits,\u00a0a review of the Tarrant County Jail\u2019s medical systems<\/a>\u00a0found last year.<\/p>\n Tarrant County is allowed to decide how it wants to staff up its jail, Wood said. KERA News reached out to some national corrections advocates to ask them whether it could work.<\/p>\n Why is understaffing an issue?<\/p>\n Recruiting people to work in jails and prisons is not easy, said Brian Dawe, the national director for the corrections officer organization\u00a0One Voice United<\/a>.<\/p>\n People don\u2019t go into corrections because it\u2019s a dream job, he said. Usually, it\u2019s because of economic necessity.<\/p>\n \u201cAnd when you have a situation where the pay does not equal what you have to go through, then you start to see a decline in the number of people that are on the job,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Dawe started his career in Massachusetts prisons in the 1980s. Working in that setting can be physically and psychologically dangerous, he said. A focus on \u201cturning keys and counting heads,\u201d with no involvement in rehabilitation or reentry programs, can feel meaningless. And long overtime hours strain officers and their families.<\/p>\n \u201cAfter you\u2019ve done three sixteen-hour shifts in a row, you could care less about the dishes or the clothes or the kids going to soccer,\u201d Dawe said. \u201cYou just need sleep.\u201d<\/p>\n The understaffing problem is widespread across jails, which generally hold people awaiting trial, and prisons, which hold people who have been convicted.<\/p>\n While Dawe said he\u2019d need to know more about Recana\u2019s program to have a fixed opinion, he expressed skepticism people would move from other places to become jailers in Tarrant County.<\/p>\n \u201cAre these guys rejects from police departments or former corrections departments that can\u2019t get a job where they\u2019re at? Why would they go to Texas?\u201d he said. \u201cI\u2019d just have a lot of questions I\u2019d want answered before I\u2019d ever engage. I mean, you\u2019re dealing with people\u2019s lives here. This isn\u2019t a Coca-Cola factory.\u201d<\/p>\n Recana\u2019s plans for Tarrant County aren\u2019t clear. The company declined to do an interview for this story. A spokesperson said it was too early in the process to comment publicly.<\/p>\n The spokesperson also declined to share a copy of the proposal Recana was asked to submit when it was competing for the jail staffing contract. KERA News has submitted an official public records request for the proposal.<\/p>\n Liberty County, outside Houston, was supposed to be the first to try staffing a jail with Recana contractors. Commissioners approved a contract last year but didn\u2019t go through with it because of the cost, Liberty County Sheriff Bobby Rader said in an email.<\/p>\n What do we know about the contract?<\/p>\n Tarrant County will guarantee placement for a minimum of 50 jailers from Recana, according to the county\u2019s request for proposals, which is publicly available online.<\/p>\n The contract jailers have to have a Texas Commission on Law Enforcement basic jailer\u2019s license, and the sheriff\u2019s office will provide training on skills like CPR and using force, the request states.<\/p>\n The Tarrant County Sheriff\u2019s Office did not respond to questions for this story, including one about the anticipated cost of the contract per week.<\/p>\n At a commissioners court meeting on Oct. 14,<\/a>\u00a0Herklotz told commissioners Recana is needed because the company has a further recruiting reach.<\/p>\n Recana will pay contract jailers\u2019 living expenses for 30 days while they get settled, County Administrator Chandler Merritt said. Tarrant County also has the option to hire Recana jailers permanently.<\/p>\n Recana\u2019s previous experience comes from the state\u2019s\u00a0immigration enforcement effort, Operation Lone Star<\/a>. Recana staffed processing facilities on the border,\u00a0according to the company\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those facilities are now closed, according to Wood. They were regulated by the state jail commission, and Wood said they didn\u2019t find any problems with them.<\/p>\n Two lawsuits against Recana over its work during Operation Lone Star are working their way through the courts,\u00a0according to a report from Bloomberg<\/a>. They allege Recana\u2019s slow processing times left people detained too long.<\/p>\n The company is also bidding for ICE contracts,\u00a0Bloomberg reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n Daniel Landsman is the vice president of policy for the prison reform group Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). While the Recana contract might help Tarrant County, it won\u2019t be a solution everywhere, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not something I could see working at a national level, because we only have so many correctional officers to pull from,\u201d Landsman said. \u201cAnd the issue that we\u2019re facing is we simply don\u2019t have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Landsman, whose work focuses on the prison system, said the \u201cflip side\u201d of the understaffing problem is the population problem.<\/p>\n One solution to understaffing is to reevaluate who needs to be incarcerated, he argued. FAMM advocates for identifying people in prisons who might not need to be incarcerated anymore, like people over 55 or those dealing with serious medical conditions.<\/p>\n Tarrant County has tried to limit its jail population. The Mental Health Jail Diversion Center opened to offer an alternative to jail for low-level offenders with mental health problems, but it wasn\u2019t enough to \u201cmaterially reduce\u201d the jail population,\u00a0the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.<\/a><\/p>\n At one point, the county spent more than $40 million on jail overflow space, sending local detainees to a private prison in West Texas.\u00a0That contract ended early<\/a>\u00a0after KERA News reported on safety violations at the private facility.Recana\u2019s previous experience comes from the state\u2019s\u00a0immigration enforcement effort, Operation Lone Star<\/a>. Recana staffed processing facilities on the border,\u00a0according to the company\u2019s website<\/a>.<\/p>\n Those facilities are now closed, according to Wood. They were regulated by the state jail commission, and Wood said they didn\u2019t find any problems with them.<\/p>\n Two lawsuits against Recana over its work during Operation Lone Star are working their way through the courts,\u00a0according to a report from Bloomberg<\/a>. They allege Recana\u2019s slow processing times left people detained too long.<\/p>\n The company is also bidding for ICE contracts,\u00a0Bloomberg reports<\/a>.<\/p>\n Daniel Landsman is the vice president of policy for the prison reform group Families Against Mandatory Minimums (FAMM). While the Recana contract might help Tarrant County, it won\u2019t be a solution everywhere, he said.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s not something I could see working at a national level, because we only have so many correctional officers to pull from,\u201d Landsman said. \u201cAnd the issue that we\u2019re facing is we simply don\u2019t have enough.\u201d<\/p>\n Landsman, whose work focuses on the prison system, said the \u201cflip side\u201d of the understaffing problem is the population problem.<\/p>\n One solution to understaffing is to reevaluate who needs to be incarcerated, he argued. FAMM advocates for identifying people in prisons who might not need to be incarcerated anymore, like people over 55 or those dealing with serious medical conditions.<\/p>\n Tarrant County has tried to limit its jail population. The Mental Health Jail Diversion Center opened to offer an alternative to jail for low-level offenders with mental health problems, but it wasn\u2019t enough to \u201cmaterially reduce\u201d the jail population,\u00a0the Fort Worth Star-Telegram reported.<\/a><\/p>\n At one point, the county spent more than $40 million on jail overflow space, sending local detainees to a private prison in West Texas.\u00a0That contract ended early<\/a>\u00a0after KERA News reported on safety violations at the private facility.<\/p>\n \n\tRelated\n<\/p>\n Fort Worth Report is certified by the Journalism Trust Initiative<\/a> for adhering to standards for ethical journalism.<\/p>\n Republish This Story<\/p>\n
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