Texas prisons

Multiple Texas prisons are almost impossible to staff, and the agency responsible for more than 100,000 inmates currently isn’t set up to address it. That and other critiques were levied against the Texas Department of Criminal Justice by the Sunset Advisory Commission staff report this week.

More than 10,000 books are banned inside Texas prisons.

An investigation by the website Civil Beat in Honolulu identified communications between Jody Hall and a prospective adoptive mother that appear to show her brokering black-market adoptions from the Marshall Islands. Reporter John Hill spoke with KERA's Bekah Morr about that investigation.

Four nonprofits joined a federal lawsuit to protect people in Texas prisons from the heat. It's one of several attempts over the years to address this issue, but efforts haven't gotten much traction.

Bernie Tiede, whose murder of a Texas widow was immortalized by Richard Linklater, is suing the state over what he calls its “cruel and unusual” treatment of inmates in hot prisons.

When Quinton Cox assaulted Servando Dominguez the results were blood, terminations, and questions.

The family of Correctional Officer Jovian Motley plan to protest at the prison where he died because they said the state has not provided answers to what happened.

The state has battled to keep secret key documents related to an assault by prison guards that left a man in a coma.

Jovian Motley worked a double shift that day. His mother said he should never have been in the cell where he died.

Thirteen guards from a Texas prison have been fired or resigned after the beating of an inmate that left him hospitalized — likely for the rest of his life. Several eyewitnesses along with former staff said staffing and training issues are leading to more violence. TDCJ denied the incident was due to staffing or training.