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Seeking Justice in Texas

Texas Incarceration and Detention

• Texas has the 3rd highest incarceration rate in the U.S.
Texas incarcerates 173,000 people, more than any state except California. Nearly 12% of incarcerated people are held in for-profit private prisons. Half of incarcerated Texans are in prison for non-violent offenses.

• Texas disproportionately incarcerates and detains people of color
Mass incarceration and detention devastate communities of color. More than two in every three incarcerated people in Texas are African American or Latino.

• Texas is home to more immigrant detention centers than any other state.
More than 10,000 immigrants are detained in private prisons, county jails, and immigrant detention centers on any given day in Texas. Asylum seekers and immigrants spend months or even years awaiting resolution of their cases.

Texas Initiatives
Grassroots Leadership has worked in Texas since 2003 to stop prison expansion, reform immigration, and build bridges among communities

Immigrant Justice
• Immigrant Detention
Fueled by private prison industry profits, the immigrant detention system in the U.S. has grown dramatically. Detention expansion affects society's most vulnerable. Immigrant families are ripped apart when a long-time resident parent is detained for long periods of time. Immigrants and asylum seekers can spend months or years in detention while their cases are heard in the immigration system.

• Immigrant Family Detention
Undocumented families face an uncertain future if detained. In 2009, Grassroots Leadership and our allies won an historic victory when ICE agreed to stop detaining immigrant families at the notorious T. Don Hutto detention center.

• Law Enforcement and Immigrants
For a U.S. Citizen, a simple traffic stop usually means a ticket or trip to the local jail. For an immigrant, it can mean deportation. Grassroots Leadership calls on Texas localities to end ICE-local law enforcement collaborations like the notorious 287(g) program and the new “Secure Communities” program.
more about immigrant justice in Texas >>

Building Community among Peoples of Color in Houston

Mass incarceration devastates both the African American and immigrant communities. Strengthening alliances between Black and Brown communities will create a united voice to address shared problems.

Grassroots Leadership seeks to build alliances, open communications, and increase mutual understanding among African American and immigrant communities.
Together, Black and Brown communities can confront the impact of disproportionate and unnecessary incarceration on all people of color, and the legacy of discrimination on which it is built. more >>


Familias Unidas por la Esperanza
Families United for Hope
Familias Unidas supports people affected by immigrant detention and deportation and organizes with them to challenge unjust laws and practices. Familias includes formerly detained immigrants and family members of deported and detained individuals. more >>

 

 

 

 

Texas Resources

Considering a Private Jail, Prison or Detention Center?
A Resource Packet for Community Members and Public Officials
Grassroots Leadership’s updated Resource Packet analyzes the economic impact of private prisons on Texas communities, offers alternatives to prison expansion, and compares the safety and conditions at private and government run prisons. September 2009

Texas Prison Bid'nes Launched by Justice Strategies in March 2007, the Texas Prison Bid'ness blog posts information about the growing prison-for-profit industry in Texas. Since the first prison-for-profit in the world opened in Texas in 1984, Texas has become home to scores of prisons of all shapes and sizes that are run for the profit of corporations.  Texas Prison Bid'ness is used to share information about the true costs of private prisons to individuals, families and communities in Texas and across the country.  Grassroots Leadership Texas coordinator Bob Libal and research intern Nick Hudson contribute regularly to Texas Prison Bid'ness.

CCA's Mineral Wells Unit
After receiving a steady stream of reports about unsafe conditions at Corrections Corporation of America's Mineral Wells Unit, and a reader's report of a large disturbance at the facility in July, Grassroots Leadership filed an open records request for data on the 2,100-bed Pre-Parole Transfer Facility. This report documents the pattern of abuse and mistreatment suffered by prisoners at Mineral Wells that has been corroborated by multiple family members of people held at Mineral Wells. The report is available in three parts:
Part 1>> Part 2>> Part 3>>

GROUND ZERO: The Laredo Superjail and the No Action Alternative, Nicholas Hudson, July 2006

Allied Organizations

Texas Criminal Justice Coalition

Texas Civil Rights Project

Texas Jail Project

ACLU of Texas

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