Most Recent in Texas Politics:

1Texas Legislative Session Begins With Heavy Security Presence Following U.S. Capitol Riot

2Lege in the Time of Coronavirus

3Editorial: Look Down Ballot for Democratic Wins in Texas

4Texas Tally: Hindsight is 2020

5After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

6Rural Voters Stepped on the Gas for Trump Across the Texas Oil Patch

Most Recent in Environment:

1Teens for a Green New Deal

2Why the South Is Organizing Its Own Green New Deal

3Solar Energy is Hitting a Growth Spurt. So Is The Disinformation Around It.

4Texas Has Elected A Climate Change Denier to the Railroad Commission

5Illegal Air Pollution is Skyrocketing in Texas, But State Regulators are Ignoring Complaints

6Why is Michael Bloomberg Giving $2.6 Million to Elect a Railroad Commissioner in Texas?

Most Recent in Border:

1Local Organizers Explain the Republican Surge in South Texas

25,000 People Contract COVID-19 While In ICE Custody, Including This Father Of 5

3Mexico Turns To Television And Radio For Remote Learning

4New Engineering Report Finds Privately Built Border Wall Will Fail

5El ducto del coronavirus

6The Coronavirus Pipeline

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1Anatomy of a Crime

2Fort Bend County Will Soon Have Its First Black Sheriff Since Reconstruction

3How Texas Jails Avoid Investigations of Inmate Deaths

4I Left My Friends in Prison in a Pandemic. Here’s What It’s Like For Them.

5After the Deaths of Two Soldiers at Fort Hood, the Navajo Nation Wants Answers

6Trump’s Favorite Texas Sheriff Faces Re-Election Amid a Spike in Deaths at His Jail

Most Recent in Education:

1The Long, Winding Road that Led to the SBOE’s Decision for Texas Schools to Teach Abstinence-Plus Sex Education

2Efforts to Save What’s Left of Mary Allen Seminary Reveal The Challenges of Preserving Black Placemaking in Texas

3Texas Has the Widest Digital Divide in the Nation. What Does that Mean for the School Year?

4The New Ensemble

5Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

6Tough Decisions Ahead for School Leaders in Rural Texas

Most Recent in Health Care:

1COVID-19 Response has Been Starkly Different for Indigenous Communities in Texas

2After Sarah Davis’ Election Defeat, Texas Reproductive Health Advocates Worry About Losing a Powerful Republican Ally

3For Families That Lost Loved Ones or Jobs to the Pandemic, Thanksgiving Carries an Extra Weight This Year

4How We Got Here

5A West Texas Nursing Home Sent Its COVID-Positive Residents Elsewhere. Now Two of Them Are Dead.

6The Forgotten Children of Texas

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Researcher Howard Henderson on Reimagining Policing in the U.S.

2Texas Observer Founding Editor Ronnie Dugger Reflects on 65 Years of Publication

3How Katharine Hayhoe Stays Hopeful as the Planet Warms

4Author William Lopez on How Immigration Raids Inflict Long-Lasting Trauma

5Why a Texas Gun Control Activist is Optimistic About the Chances for Reform

6American Health Care is Broken, Especially in Texas. What Can We Do About It?

Most Recent in Books:

1A New Book Celebrates the Work of Architect John S. Chase

2The Flâneur of Downtown Dallas

3Remembering a Jewish Upbringing in Meyerland, Texas

4How Texas Women Delivered the Nineteenth Amendment

5A New Short-Story Collection Imagines a Texas Town’s Secession

6Improbable, Prophetic Houston

Most Recent in Features:

1How to Die in Texas

2Young Texans Keep Spelling Bees Going From Home

4San Antonio Embraces Mandaean Refugees

5The Ghosts of Jefferson

6Little Arthouse on the Prairie

Most Recent in Essay:

1Editorial: Look Down Ballot for Democratic Wins in Texas

2What the Black Lives Matter Protests Mean for East Texas

3Raise a Glass to the Class of COVID-19

4What’s a Bookstore for?

5Lessons on the Long Game from Goose Island’s Whooping Cranes

6In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: The Essential Women of Austin

2Eye on Texas: The Black Yearbook

3Eye on Texas: Border Tuner

4Eye on Texas: The Broken Wheel Ranch Project

5Eye on Texas: Spike Johnston

6Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Poet Claudia Delfina Cardona on Her Debut Poetry Chapbook

2Author Saeed Jones on Empathy, the Power of Memoir, and Growing up Gay in North Texas

3Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

4Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

5Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

6Parallel Planes

Amalia Beckner

Amalia Beckner is a lawyer in the felony trial division of the Harris County Public Defender’s Office.

In a Pandemic, Poor Defendants Could Pay With Their Lives

by Amalia Beckner | Mon, Mar 30, 2020 at 11:05 am CST

The essay's author speaks with book club participants during a meeting.

Criminal Justice

Why I Started a Book Club in the Harris County Jail

Education programs make jails safer and reduce rates of recidivism when people reenter society.

Mon, Dec 2, 2019 |

I felt my blood pressure rising, heard my heartbeat in my ears, and tasted my mouth drying out as the heavy jail door slammed shut behind me. It was my first time in 4J2, a maximum-security women’s pod in the … Read More