Texas Department of Criminal Justice

Vengeance for Beliebers: Justin Bieber Ticket Forger Gets Lengthy Prison Sentence

A Florida man with a lengthy rap sheet ran afoul of two powerful forces yesterday: the long arm of Texas law and the mystical might of Justin Bieber. Forty-year-old Robert C. Grusczynski pleaded guilty in Montgomery County district court to one count of second-degree felony forgery. Judge Fred Edwa ... More >>

Thomas Lee Elkins: GEO Group Lets Sixth Rapist Stroll Away From Halfway House in 24 Months

The rapist of a 16-year-old girl is the latest sexual predator to slip through the sieve that is the privately run Southeast Texas Transitional Center. Thomas Lee Elkins, convicted of aggravated kidnapping and sexual assault in 1991, absconded from the facility, 10950 Old Beaumont Highway, October ... More >>

TDCJ's 10 Most Terminally Ill Inmates Cost $2 Million a Year to Treat

Jailed offenders with terminal illnesses have a price tag, and the 10 costliest inmates in the state's prison's system totaled almost $2 million in health care costs in 2011. That's a figure quoted by Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, who tracks such topics as chair of the Senate Criminal Justice Comm ... More >>

Michael Elbert Young: Fifth Escapee in 18 Months from GEO Group Facility

A high-risk child rapist who hopped over his halfway house's barbed wire fence Thursday night is the fifth sex offender to abscond from the privately run Southeast Texas Transitional Center in 18 months. According to the Houston Chronicle story linked above, authorities say Michael Elbert Young, wh ... More >>

6 Musicians Who Messed With Texas

Today, March 2, is Texas Independence Day, the day a bunch of old white politicians and landowners declared this part of the Mexican state of Coahuila y Tejas to be its own sovereign republic in a cabin near Washington-on-the-Brazos. For some inexplicable reason, Rocks Off does not have the day off ... More >>

The PasDoctor Geronimo Manifesto: A Presidential Run and a Birthday "Tepee/Tent-Residence" Orgy, Starring Cameron Diaz

Jessica Cooley / Lufkin Daily NewsPasDoctor Geronimo has quite the bash planned tonight.​Hair Balls' old friend PasDoctor Geronimo is back at it this week. This time around he's not in trouble with the law. Instead, the Lufkin man, whose "white man's name" is Douglas Paul McCoy, has filed a ... More >>

WWJD? Hit and Run

Driver gives religion, not help.

Leadbelly's "Midnight Special" Prison in Sugar Land Closing (Although It Might Not Be the Prison He "Wrote" It in)

Texas legislators are likely to agree to closing the century-old Central Unit prison in Sugar Land, mostly because it sits on land near the airport that can be developed. It's one of several Texas Department of Criminal Justice units in the area; a compound of four units is nearby in unincorporated ... More >>

Texas To Put Humans to Sleep With Animal Drug

Texas' execution-bound inmates will soon know what it's like to be put to sleep.​Pretty soon, in-deep-doo-doo Texans will be able to exit the planet in the same style as deaf, blind and arthritic-ridden Fidos and Fluffys. As was recently reported by the Wall Street Journal, the state of Texas ... More >>

GEO: Private-Prison Company Somehow Keeps Getting Contracts In Texas

Illustration by Keri RosebraughA look into private prisons​When Arthur William Brown left his Houston halfway house December 15, he did the usual: he signed the check-out form that residents of the facility have to sign whenever they leave the premises for the day. Only on that day, Brown ... More >>

Execution Drug In Short Supply; How Will Texas Cope?

Texas doesn't make rookie mistakes when it comes to the death penalty​The Arizona Republic reports today that a planned execution in Ohio almost had to delay a recent execution because of a shortage of thiopental sodium, the drug used for lethal injections. Arizona, it said, might be unable to do ... More >>

Texas' Serial Killers: Someone's Selling The Dirt From Their Graves On eBay

See that my grave is kept clean...and sell the dirt!​Digging up someone's grave and stealing whatever's down there isn't legal, but what about the dirt laying over the grave or next to a headstone? Is it against the law to take home a scoop or two? And what if the person is somewhat famous? Should ... More >>

Victim Advocates Now Welcome At Executions

Can Edouard Save Jose Medellin?

Victim's Advocate Won't be Witnessing Execution

Val D. Adams, Oscar Wyatt, Paris Hilton, Garbage and Religious Transfers

A preacher makes the news again

So Did You Hear the One About How All Those Longhorn Football Players Keep Getting Arrested?

Letters to the Editor

A Moon Swoon

One Houston preacher gave up the cross for the cult

The Fix Is In

UTMB is under fire in Dallas for its jail health care. So why is Houston ready to install it here?

No Pain, No Gain

Our solution for saving Texas's claim to capital punishment fame

Ill Will

A parolee fights leukemia -- and the constraints of ankle monitors

A Side of Death

The Houston Center for Photography explores mortality through food

Party Like It's 1899

Super Bowl week turned out to be a slow one for HPD's vice squad

Doing Time

With JC in the TDCJ

Make It S-T-O-P

The Texans go scoreless on tunes as well as turf

Jail Hell

Even as inmate James Mitchell was dying, Montgomery County told his relatives he'd be fine

Letters

Justice for Some

Just who is a victim? After flexing its muscles to reform the justice system, the victims’ rights movement suffers growing pains over divisive issues.

Hard on the Yard

A law leaves some sex offenders banned from their own attorneys' offices

Face To Face

The murder of their loved one haunted Amy and Linda White until a Texas prison mediation program brought them together with the killer. Now they've all got their answers -- and unique justice.

Drug Resistant

Harris County jailers are in no hurry to hand out meds to inmates with AIDS. Inmates claim this and other lockup practices endanger their lives.

Lost Boys

Judy Walker saw one son die in prison and his twin sentenced to life for shooting a cop. The prison autopsy says Reginald died of natural causes. But his mother says it was retaliation for Robert's actions that got his brother killed.

Captive Emotions

Reagan Hamilton goes into Texas jails and tells inmates they better stay in touch with their kids. Her sadly powerful message has sparked some successes. Too bad they don't include her own father.

Hard Knox

In an ACLU test case on brutality, jurors side with state prison guards

From Cells to Souls

Chuck Colson and his evangelical Christians team up with a local prison for a divine intervention program

Jailhouse Crock

Spanish-language media cries foul over Railcar Killer interviews

Letters 08-31-2000

Spaced Out, We Were So Wrong, Woe to the 'Stros

Throwing Away the Key

A talented escape artist and con man gets more prison time. Will he serve it?

Letters From the Inside

Ricardo Lara spent 19 years in Texas prisons. He got out the other day.

Cell Phones

Not even prison officials can silence the irrepressible King of Con

Media Row on Death Row

Will proposed media rules stifle coverage of convicts facing execution?

Walter Waldhauser Wired

Status Report

The Special Needs of Frank Gonzales Jr.

The Texas parole board let him out to die; instead, he got involved in a killing.

The Further Adventures of King Con

Yet again, Steven Russell bluffed his way out of prison. And yet again, he got caught.

The Trouble with Larry

Could castration cure Larry McQuay of his urge to molest children? He thinks it can, and wants the state to nueter him. Others would just like to neutralize him.

The Insider

The Case for Gulf War Gate

Letters