SMITH COUNTY, Texas — Reports of overcrowding and non-compliance inside East Texas jails have soared within the past few years.
It's an issue that Sheriffs are describing as a crisis.
"The word that was used very, very often in that meeting was the word crisis," Johnwayne Valdez, Rusk County Sheriff said. "It's not necessarily a word that we like to use in law enforcement at all. But because it's the jail, and our biggest liability in any county that has a jail, that word gets used quite a bit."
Nacogdoches County Sheriff Jason Bridges agreed. He said within the past year, courts have shut down causing a backup in prosecutions, which has led to two big issues.
"Jails are either overpopulated or they don't have the staffing," Bridges said. "We've had a problem placing inmates in other jails because they're having the same situation."
The pandemic took a toll on industries across the board, including the Texas criminal justice system. While the pandemic paused many facets of everyday life, crime continued, and the holding place for inmates before conviction became overpopulated.
"We feel helpless here," Larry Smith, Smith County Sheriff said. "Not being able to do anything with the inmates that needed something done."
Smith partially attributes the overcrowding issue at his jail to the pandemic, but he said the years leading to it contributed to what they are seeing now.
"The pandemic has got us in a hole that we'll never prosecute our way out of," Smith said.
One of those documents lists that an inmate was held in a holding cell for 192 hours.
Another report shows inmates were not given a change of clothing at a minimum of once a week.
Smith said the problems they are facing inside the jail have been ongoing since 2014, but heightened because the court system was shut down for a long time.
"I wrote two letters to all the courts, I was just about begging and pleading with them to help us do something with these inmates," Smith said.
Brandon Wood, the executive director for the Texas Commission on Jail Standards, said several of his jail inspectors have seen overcrowding violations statewide.
"One of the primary drivers of the jail overcrowding issues is the judicial system not being able to operate as quickly and efficiently as everyone hoped for," Wood said.
Wood oversees the inspections for the entire state, his team shows up to county jails to ensure all the standards are met but it's something that hasn’t happened in Smith County in quite some time.
"It shouldn't be hard to maintain basic compliance with basic jail commission rules, we should always look at exceeding that if you always try to exceed that you'll always meet it. But I haven't gotten everybody in tune with that," Smith said.
As a part of the solution to improve the quality of the jail, Smith said he hired new leadership that will help the jail get back on track.
"I promise you with this new manager what we got here with the three new lieutenants and the new chief, people are gonna see drastic changes," Smith said.
Those changes aren't just happening in Smith County, other East Texas facilities are getting creative to get back into compliance.
"We're just trying to do the best we can with what we have and try to stay within the confines of what the jail commission says we can do," Valdez said.
This is Part 1 of a jail investigation inside East Texas jails conducted by CBS19 Anchor Marangeli Lopez.