Most Recent in Politics:

1One Casualty of the Government Shutdown: Low-Income Texans Who Need Housing Assistance

2Abbott, Patrick, Bonnen Quietly Vote to Remove Slavery-Denying Plaque from Texas Capitol

3Trump’s Border Wall is a Vortex of Stupidity that Trump and the GOP Can’t Escape

4The Texas GOP May Actually Get Serious about Real Problems During this Legislature

5The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats

6As One of the Eleven New Women in the Texas House, We Must Take Sexual Misconduct Seriously

Most Recent in Environment:

1The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats

2TCEQ is Finally Doing Something About an East Texas Polluter

3The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

4Six Stories About Rural Texas You Should Read Before 2018 Ends

5The Strange, Record-Setting Weather Extremes Texans Faced in 2018

6Is Texas’ Overcrowded, Underfunded State Parks System Being Loved to Death?

Most Recent in Border:

1Audio: Border Patrol Plans to Light Up Butterfly Refuge Like a ‘War Zone’

3Trump’s Wall Is Coming to Texas. Meet Its First Victims.

4Trump’s Border Wall is a Vortex of Stupidity that Trump and the GOP Can’t Escape

5The Border Fence vs. Wall Debate is a ‘Trap’ for Democrats

6These Rural Panhandle Towns Should be Shrinking. But Thanks to Immigrants, They’re Booming.

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1‘Ignored to Death’ in the Bexar County Jail

2The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

3Botham Jean’s Death Could Lead to an Overhaul of Police Oversight in Dallas

4When Prison Reform Goes Bad

5John Guandolo is on a Crusade to Turn Texas Cops Against Muslims

6State-Sanctioned Secrecy Shields Texas’ Death Penalty Machine from Scrutiny

Most Recent in Education:

1In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

2Amid Record Youth Suicide Attempts, Texas Lags in Prevention Training for Teachers

3Cash-Strapped Rural Texas Schools Look to Universities for Help

4What’s in a Name? Texas SBOE Tentatively Approves ‘Ethnic Studies: Mexican American Studies’

5SMU Just Lost Its Independent Student Newspaper. Is Your College Next?

6Lawsuit: Texas Art Teacher Suspended Because She Told Students About Her Wife

Most Recent in Health Care:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2Six Stories About Rural Texas You Should Read Before 2018 Ends

3‘How Can You Do This to People?’: After Rural Hospitals Close in Milam County, Residents Scramble to Find Care

4Four Texas Abortion Court Cases to Watch in 2019

5Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

6Struggling Rural Hospitals Say They’re Being Preyed Upon by Blue Cross Blue Shield

Most Recent in The Interview:

1Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

2The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

3Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

4Senfronia Thompson Says #MeToo: Texas Lawmaker on 45 Years of Sexism, Racism at the Capitol

5Houston Police Chief Art Acevedo on Sanctuary Cities, Police Unions and Tommy Guns

6Meet Nueces County’s New DA, a Self-Professed ‘Mexican Biker Lawyer Covered in Tattoos’

Most Recent in Books:

1The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

2‘Life Was Her Art’: Nadine Eckhardt Remembered as an Influential Cultural Conduit in Texas and Washington

3Our 10 Favorite Texas Books of 2018

4The Lone Star State Teems with Snakes, Lizards and Toads in ‘Herping Texas’

5Octavio Solis’ ‘Retablos’ Recounts a ‘Beautiful, Messy’ Youth on the Border

6‘When I Spoke in Tongues’ Chronicles a Long Walk Away from the Church

Most Recent in Features:

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2Raspa Revolution

3100 Ways to Draw a Line

4Homeward Bound

5The Sisterhood

6The Time-Traveler’s Guide to the Lower Pecos

Most Recent in Essay:

1The Trouble with Yoga

2Heads in the Mud

3The Day the Windows Shook

4Women’s Work

5I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

6Somewhere It Hides a Well

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

2Eye on Texas: Gentrification in East Austin

3Eye on Texas: Transgender Youth in Texas

4Eye On Texas: Hurricane Harvey

5Eye on Texas: Fantastical Taxidermy

6Eye on Texas: Runners Take on 170-Mile Race in Big Bend

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

2Parallel Planes

4Poem: ‘Resistance’

5Poem: ‘Screenplay for a Homemade Movie’

6Poem: ‘To Be One with the All’

Tag Archives: jail

gold handcuffs

by Alexa Garcia-Ditta

Guarding Against Self-Harm

Wed, Jan 6, 2016 |

Have you ever attempted suicide? Are you thinking of killing or injuring yourself today? Are you feeling hopeless or have nothing to look forward to? If you are...Read More

Breastfeeding in jail

by Alexa Garcia-Ditta

Bonding Behind Bars

The Travis County jail is one of four nationwide — and the only in Texas — to allow new moms to breastfeed in custody.

Tue, Dec 1, 2015 |

The Travis County jail is one of just four county jails in the nation — and the only one in Texas — that allows breastfeeding on-site....Read More

by Forrest Wilder

State Punishes Payday Lender for Criminalizing Debt

Wed, Apr 22, 2015 |

A year and a half after the Observer documented hundreds of examples of payday loan companies using the criminal justice system to pursue unpaid loans, state re...Read More

Kelsey Erin Shipman

by Sarah Mortimer

Tyrant’s Foe: Kelsey Erin Shipman’s Breaking the Cycle of Incarceration With Poetry

Tue, Aug 12, 2014 |

If somebody told you that the key to stopping thousands of Texas inmates from reentering prison was teaching them how to write poetry, you might laugh out loud....Read More

Barred Care

by Emily DePrang

Barred Care

Want treatment for mental illness in Houston? Go to jail.

Mon, Jan 13, 2014 |

Want treatment for mental illness in Houston? Go to jail....Read More

by Emily DePrang

In Harris County, New Efforts to Treat Mental Illness In and Out of Jail

Thu, Sep 26, 2013 |

One of the contributors to Texas’ slowly dropping incarceration rates is a growth in diversion programs that address problems like addiction and mental illnes...Read More

Speedy Roo, the mascot of the payday loan lender Speedy Cash, in an Austin advertisement.

by Forrest Wilder

Fast Cash: How Taking Out a Payday Loan Could Land You in Jail

Payday loan companies have a new debt-collection tool: Texas courts and prosecutors.

Tue, Jul 16, 2013 |

Payday loan companies have a new debt-collection tool: Texas courts and prosecutors....Read More

by Emily DePrang

Harris County Jail Among Worst for Inmate Sexual Assault

Mon, Jul 1, 2013 |

A massive new study by the U.S. Department of Justice ranked more than 350 jails by the rate of sexual abuse reported by their prisoners. Houston’s Harris Cou...Read More

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