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Most Recent in Politics:

1‘A Mockery of Public Trust’: Bexar Sheriff Cleans House, Angers Deputies’ Union

2Loon Star: Trump University, Department of Mendacity

3Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’

4The System Works for Attorney General Ken Paxton. Again.

5Is the Texas House Violating the Americans with Disabilities Act by Refusing to Caption Legislative Hearings?

6The Cost of Carve-Outs

Most Recent in Environment:

1Nearly 500,000 Texans Live in Communities with Contaminated Groundwater. Lawmakers Aren’t Doing Much About It.

2‘All it Took was 25 Years’: Legislature Ponies Up Cash for Underfunded Texas Parks

3Carbon Sequestration Isn’t The Long-Term Solution. Is it a Short-Term One?

4Report: Oil and Gas Producers May Be Pushing the Permian Basin Past Federal Air Quality Limits

5The EPA Told Texas to Crack Down on Dangerous Air Emissions in 2015. The State Never Did, and Now It Won’t Have to.

6The Flood Next Time

Most Recent in Border:

1Shelter Director Ruben Garcia on How Struggling Nonprofits Carry the Load of the Migrant ‘Crisis’

2In the Rio Grande Valley, a Fight to Bring Back NPR

3Meet Maria Espinoza, the Texan Elevating ‘Angel Moms’ to the National Stage

4Democrats Finally Play Hardball on the Border Wall

5Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

6With Proposed Tariffs on Mexico, Trump Attacks Texas

Most Recent in Criminal Justice:

1‘A Mockery of Public Trust’: Bexar Sheriff Cleans House, Angers Deputies’ Union

2The System Works for Attorney General Ken Paxton. Again.

3Death Penalty Reform Bill Gets Watered Down to ‘Nothing’ Before Passing Senate

4With a Bizarre Assist by Democrats, Police Groups Kill Bill to Limit Arrests for Fine-Only Offenses

6‘The Penal System Today is Slavery’: Lawmakers Finally Start to Talk About Unpaid Labor in Texas Prisons

Most Recent in Education:

1The Cost of Carve-Outs

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Texas House Considers Free College For Students Experiencing Homelessness

4‘The Wolf is in the Henhouse’

5‘We’re Not Stupid’: Texas Teachers Take on Dan Patrick and the Legislature over Dismal Education Funding

6In Violation of Texas Law, Most High Schools Aren’t Giving Students the Chance to Register to Vote

Most Recent in Health Care:

1Yet Another Rural Texas Hospital is in Jeopardy After Anti-Tax Activists Kill Funding Proposal

2Texas Legislature Improves Suicide Prevention in Schools, but Makes Little Progress for Adults

3Inside Texas’ Failed Experiment to Replace Planned Parenthood with an Anti-Abortion Group

5Texans with Disabilities are Struggling to Find Health Care Attendants. Lawmakers Didn’t Do Much to Help.

6Texas Legislature Set to (Slightly) Expand Medical Marijuana Access

Most Recent in The Interview:

2The Interview: Mass Resistance

3Meet Jim Allison, Texas’ Newest Nobel Laureate (and Three-Time Cancer Survivor)

4Dolores Huerta is Still Knocking on Doors and Registering Voters at 88

5The Interview: Veronica Escobar is Poised to Make History

6Redistricting Guru Michael Li on Texas’ Gerrymandered Maps

Most Recent in Books:

1Announcing the Ninth Annual Texas Observer Short Story Contest

2‘Human Matter’ Dredges up the Dark History of the Guatemalan Civil War

3With Sprawl and Serial Killers, Houston Noir Packs a Mean Punch

4When Crossing Over Becomes a Deadly Game

5Beasts of the Border

6Invasive Species Have Reshaped Texas. Now What?

Most Recent in Features:

1Washington Crossing the Rio Grande

2Ghosts of the Baker Hotel

3At Home in the World

4Plight at the Museum

5The Texas Observer’s Best Features of 2018

6East Texas Photographer Captures 50 Years of Haunting, Ordinary Magic

Most Recent in Essay:

1Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

2The Trouble with Yoga

3Heads in the Mud

4The Day the Windows Shook

5Women’s Work

6I Grew Up on the Texas-Mexico Border, but Now I Barely Recognize It

Most Recent in Eye on Texas:

1Eye on Texas: Loren Elliott

2Eye on Texas: Charlotte Moore

3Eye on Texas: ‘My Joyful Dance’

4Eye on Texas: Ghosts of the City

5Eye on Texas: Fiesta Protesta

6Eye on Texas: Remembering Draylen Mason

Most Recent in Poetry:

1Remembering W.S. Merwin, Honorary Texan

2Lost in Limbo in the Hays County Jail

3Houston Poet Analicia Sotelo’s Debut Smashes Latino Stereotypes

4Parallel Planes

6Poem: ‘Resistance’

Tag Archives: Travis County 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

Photograph of Doug Smith, smiling and wearing a suit.

by Jacob Sanchez

Travis County Inmates to See Families Face-to-Face Again

In a victory for prison reform groups, in-person visitations are coming back after more than two years behind screens.

Fri, Oct 23, 2015 |

“It was all in one night, and all under the influence of crack.” That’s how Doug Smith, a policy analyst at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, explaine...Read More

by Kelsey Jukam

Lawmakers Could Slow Spread of Video-Only Jail Visitations

Wed, May 13, 2015 |

Prison phone service companies like Secures Technologies have found a new way to profit from their captive audience through video visitation systems. This new t...Read More

Jail visitation

by Forrest Wilder

A Dallas Company Finds Profit in Video-Only Jail Visitations

Thu, Oct 16, 2014 |

Some Texas jails are eliminating face-to-face visitation and requiring instead the use of a video visitation system sold by Securus Technologies. Critics are ca...Read More

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