Camp County Jail passes annual inspection

The Camp County Sheriff ’s office announced on June 22 that the county jail passed its annual inspection conducted by the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. The inspection found no deficiencies in the jail.

The standards include keeping proper records for each prisoner, with a separate file for detailed medical records, maintaining sanitation standards, and making sure all prisoners get three meals a day.

The state agency, created in 1975 and headquartered in Austin, oversees inspections of Texas’ county jails. The inspection is an annual event, however, the inspector shows up unannounced so that there is no preplanning. To pass this inspection, jails must meet the Texas Minimum Jail Standards in the Texas Administrative Code Title 37, Part Nine.

The county jail has struggled in recent decades with passing inspections, with various citations being issued against the jail such as disrepair, overcrowding, and various health and safety deficiencies.

A 1962 grand jury gave a recommendation to Camp County Commissioners that repairs were needed in the jail. Old bedding needed to be destroyed and new showers needed to be put in. An inspection in 1977 showed flaws within the jail such as a lack of tables for inmates to eat on, as well as a need for a new locking mechanism. The jail failed a county inspection in 1988 for overcrowding due to a high daily inmate intake.

Through the years, great efforts have been made to get back on track at the jail. In 2019, Sheriff McCandless and the County Commissioners strove to build a new law enforcement center, taking the first step by hiring a jail architect in June of that year.

Representatives of the architectural firm of DRG Architects visited the Court to explain its process and the expectations of the Texas Jail Commission (TJC) to the Court.

Wayne Gondeck, president of the company, and Gary Adams, the jail planner and consultant, brought a sample model to show the court and explained Texas jail construction rules. On this visit, they brought a folder with photos of Law Enforcement Centers they had built all around the state, explaining that DRG Architects primarily builds jails, and that is their only business model.

County Judge AJ Mason told The Gazette that the firm is known in the law enforcement community as experts in the field, inasmuch that there were very few Texas architectural firms that only specialized in building jails.

After designs were drawn up and a price was given, a bond election was held. The citizens of the county declined the bond to support the new law enforcement center. With that, improvements began on the current jail.

Clearly, this work has been successful, as the County Jail has officially been deemed to have no deficiencies. Sheriff John Cortelyou said the jail staff is to be commended.

“The entire jail staff, led by Jail Administrator Tracie Yount, does an exemplary job as evidenced by this recent inspection of the jail,” Sheriff Cortelyou said.