Last updated: June 19, 2021
After a divisive legislative session in Texas, lawmakers are headed home. But our work doesn’t end here. Over the next 20 days, the Governor will review the bills that have reached his desk and sign them into law, let them pass into law without a signature, or veto them.
This...
This year, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition turned 20 — and, as always, the TCJC team has been working to ensure that our mission is meeting the moment. Over the past several months, as the interconnected challenges of COVID-19 and racial injustice have earned the national spotlight, we have seen calls for improved health and safety approaches. As...
A year ago, I sent out an email asking TCJC’s supporters for your input on our work. We collected survey responses from 140 people, who represented all walks of life and levels of justice system impact. I read about your priorities for policy reform, your difficulties navigating an opaque and insensitive justice system, and your reasons for joining us in...
Finding the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition was a bit of a fluke—or at least that’s how it felt at the time. Doug Smith, TCJC’s Senior Policy Analyst, had come to speak to one of my classes at St. Edward’s University in 2018. I spoke to him after his presentation and asked for one of his business cards. About a year...
TCJC condemns targeted and police violence against Black people and people of color across the country and reaffirms commitment to racial justice.
While coronavirus has ravaged our prisons, jails, and communities – hitting poor people and people of color particularly hard – another epidemic has captured our national attention: race-based violence. The brutal images that have arisen in the last...
March 16, 2020
The Honorable Greg Abbott
Office of the Texas Governor
P.O. Box 12428
Austin, TX 78711
Mitigating Disaster: Urgent and Just Responses to COVID-19 in the Texas Justice System
Dear Governor Abbott:
Thank you for quickly halting visitation in Texas prisons and jails across the state in response to the grave threat that a COVID-19...
In 2011, I heard a loud bang on my door. My heart began to pound in...
Over the last two years, the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition has worked to make the state’s criminal justice system more transparent by obtaining and visualizing criminal court data. Beginning with Harris County, this project has helped hold people in power accountable for their promises of reform.
With funding from Microsoft Cities Team and a partnership with data science firm...
Last updated: August 29, 2019
It’s Sine Die – the last day of legislative session – and TCJC is thrilled that so many positive bills have progressed to the Governor’s desk. A few have already become law!
The Governor now has a 20-day period to review the bills and either sign them into...
On any given day, Dallas County incarcerates about 5,100 people in county jail. About 71% of these inmates are “pretrial,” which means they are awaiting trial for the charges against them. If they are in jail as a pretrial defendant, it generally means they cannot afford bail, or they are held without bail.
Is the crime serious enough to...
