BUSTIN’ AT THE SEAMS

By A TCCC Resident

We’re overcrowded and it’s no joke. Texas Civil Commitment Office (TCCO) and Management & Training Corporation (MTC) are housing inmates in a dry good closet with no access to water. The closet was a kitchen storage for bread and canned goods. The inmates housed in this commandeered space will have to go to another housing area for any hydration, hygiene, or toilet use. 

We’ve endured a lot through the six years of this insufficient treatment and confinement motive program facility’s operation. We don’t fall under “jail” standards or “treatment facility” standards. We can’t find any agency or organization to intervene on our behalf. We have a laundry list of complaints on everything including the inadequate treatment, lack of nourishing food, mismanagement of our property, TCCO fees, failure of the work program, using polygraphs and PPGs for punishment, the SEVERE LACK of MEDICAL TREATMENT, MTC deciding to place two twin beds in each small cell, and now they’re housing men in closets!

This repurposed housing area has very limited air flow and only one entrance/exit. It cannot possibly pass fire codes. This is the smallest and most crowded housing yet with six bunk beds/twelve people crammed in an area the size of a couple of cells. The facilities water-use and sewage are maxed out at the current capacity of inmates. Our electricity is over-extended and constantly failing. This must teeter on the inhumane. We are miserable, but hey, it’s treatment and we’re all so much better for it. Right?

TCCO and MTC are making profits hand over fist by stackin ‘em deep and treatin ‘em cheap. I’ve heard of inmate warehousing all my prison years, but this gives it a manifest meaning. It’s reality here! This isn’t public safety or sex- offender treatment. It’s just inhumane. Senator John Whitmire and TCCO Director Marsha McLane are fevered with power and revenge and no real accountability or oversight. They want all the control but none of the responsibility. There is no transparency. You wouldn’t know of our plight unless we wrote and told you, and I only knew at its daybreak.

We keep experiencing one tort after another and the next seemingly worst than the one before. Every man here suffers, and no one is hopeful outside of spiritual intervention. God help us!

How long will TCCO get away with murder? Literally 25 people have died here from inadequate medicate care and only seven have managed to find another way out. This isn’t long-term treatment as pitched by the heads, it’s a life-sentence. The inmate population continues to grow, and they just get more creative in where to house us within these prison fences. 

What’s next?