Goals and Proposed Activities
The following describes the areas of focus for the advanced TA work with the Tarrant County
Jail.
Policy development and implementation
The Tarrant County Jail has seen an increase in the number of transgender individuals in
custody. Overall, policy guidance regarding transgender individuals is weak. For example, while
transgender individuals are allowed to have their pat search preference and their preferred
pronoun on their ID card, there is nothing in policy about ability to house by gender identity
and transgender people tend to be housed in general population in single cells.
Housing of youthful inmates is a perennial problem for the Tarrant County Jail. In Texas, it is a
state regulation for youth adjudicated as adults to be housed in an adult facility. The Tarrant
County Jail houses on average 35 male and 3 female youthful inmates, where they will stay
until there is a conviction. Given the small numbers, it is not surprising that housing for females
poses the biggest challenge.
JDI will review the Tarrant County Jail policies and provide recommendations for revisions to, at
a minimum, address the requirements of the PREA standards. Furthermore, JDI will work with
Ms. Lugo and the Tarrant County Jail staff on ways to implement the policy changes.
Inmate education
Tarrant County uses tablets to communicate information to individuals in their custody, an
approach that has taken on greater significance during the Covid-19 pandemic when individuals
are quarantined for a period of time and in-person communication is prohibited. JDI will work
with Ms. Lugo to revise the current inmate education curriculum and explore ways to integrate
the tablets into the agency?s strategy to provide initial and comprehensive PREA inmate
education.
Staff training
Ms. Lugo has been working hard to educate all staff at the jail on PREA. While the pandemic has
curtailed these efforts, she continues to work to educate all staff. JDI will create e-learning
content that the Tarrant County Jail can use to train new staff and to provide refresher training.
JDI will also develop e-learning content to provide specialized training for medical and mental
health staff.
MOU with Women?s Center of Tarrant County
Initial conversations between the Tarrant County Jail and the Women?s Center of Tarrant
County (WCTC) indicate that WCTC wants to provide services to individuals at the jail facilities,
but the details of service provision have not been finalized. JDI will work with the Tarrant
County Jail and WCTC to develop and finalize an MOU. The provision of services will include an
exploration of ways to use the abovementioned tablets to provide counseling services in
addition to phone and mailing options.
Please check the box next to the following questions if the answer is 'yes'.
Please enter the applicable Event Date if there is an Event associated with this TTA.
When entering an Event Date, the Time is also required.
If the TTA is targeted to a particular audience or location, please complete the questions below.
Milestones are an element, activity, work product, or key task associated with completing the TTA (e.g. kick-off meeting, collect data from stake holders, deliver initial data analysis).
Please complete the fields below, if applicable, to create a milestone for this TTA.
Please respond to the Performance Metrics below. The Performance Metrics questions are based on the TTA Type indicated in the General Information section of the TTA.
Please submit a signed letter of support from your agency’s executive or other senior staff member. The letter can be emailed to or uploaded with this request. The letter should be submitted on official letterhead and include the following information:
- General information regarding the request for TTA services, i.e., the who, what, where, when, and why.
- The organizational and/or community needs specific to the request for TTA services.
- The benefits or anticipated outcomes from the receipt of TTA services.
By submitting this application to BJA NTTAC, I understand that upon approval of this application for TTA, the requestor agrees to keep BJA NTTAC informed of any circumstances that may impact the delivery of the TTA, including changes in the date of the event, event cancellation, or difficulties communicating with the assigned TTA provider.
Please call [site:phone] if you need further assistance completing this application.