The Texas prison system has been in the media a ridiculous number of times recently and is facing issues of disciplinary quotas, falsifying records, and palliative care controversy among many other controversies and critiques.
One of the major issues in all of this is that there doesn't seem to be enough external oversight for the prison system that would help to decrease these abuses of power. There is an argument for more ombudsmen that would help with mediation between inmates and more restrictions and oversight of Texas' prison system. But, the most important thing to consider is the fact that the Texas justice and prison systems are inherently self-serving, they manage both the supply and demand of the operations.
Texas' prison system is the "biggest prison system concocted by any free society in history. " It grew exponentially through the 1990's as a way for cities to add jobs and reap the economic benefits of new prisons as well as for them to become financially dependent on these systems.
Because of the drive for nice looking statistics, and cost-cutting care practices, many inmates who are supposed to be afforded basic human rights simply aren't. Texas had the largest inmate population in the country (as of 2017) and if Texas is incarcerating that many people, those people deserve basic, enforced rights. Unfortunately for cities whose economies rely on the prison systems, through diversion programs the inmate population has dropped, and will hopefully continue to.
In summation; Texas needs to support at-risk citizens, especially youths, with better diversion systems and needs to enact major prison system reform to be humane, fair, and to limit the abuses of power that have put it in the news so often.
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