If this is the way Queen Victoria treats her prisoners, she doesn't deserve to have any.

Today I received a letter signed by 21 women who are inmates in the Cameron County Jail. I won't include their names because I don't know the status of their cases or whether there is a risk of retaliation.

Please remember these women have usually not been convicted of the crimes they are accused of committing. If they are convicted, they will be moved to a prison. Some may have never committed any crime at all. The following are excerpts with spelling and grammar as I received it:

"To start here in this Jail all the guards are nice persons. I think is not there fault about what's going on in this Jail is the fault of the County the one that is responsable for it. The food is so bad, sometimes it comes with hairs, with nats the water too. About the toilet paper we still having hard time with it one day thay had us with two brown paper napkins for each inmate. Now that Mrs. Gail Hanson has been banned out from this jail like we don't have nobody that we can tell about what we are passing through all weekend and other day we havent no toilet paper if we need they just give us a piece but in the cell we don't have none.

"...About the medical ...other girls they wait they cry of pain or about their physical problems. And the stuff take their time, while the inmate is hurting.

"I was like...bleeding of my surgery and they would give me hydrocarbonate water to clean the cut that was infected. They didn't took me to the doctor until the Consul of Mexico call them.

"Some of the inmates have the mattess torn and the blankets are torn.

"Commisary takes advantage of all the Inmates by selling the items on a very very high price. Somthings comes expire. They do it because they know we don't have other choice.

"The indigent package is toothpaste, a bar of soap and a toothbrush. When they should provide at least one stamp, envelope, one piece of paper and one pen so can the families be notify not everybondy takes collect calls and they should start selling phone cards.

"Recreation should be at least 3 times a week and not always they do that we could one week without getting rec. and that's unfair."

Is this true? In my experience, inmates tend to be more straight forward than people in the free world, just because there are few pretensions left. I think inmates tend to suffer silently. As our founding document says, it is a self-evident truth that 'mankind is more disposed to suffer while evils are sufferable than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed.' Since these women don't have much chance to abolish the jail, they will be even more disposed to suffer according the self-evident truth of the Declaration of Independence.

Inmates often become stoics, perhaps not in philosophy, but certainly in practice. I have seen inmates suffering from swollen jaws, bad insect bites and dislocated shoulders not even mention the problem. Until I ask about it.

When inmates begin to risk complaints, the conditions have often pushed the boiling point--something else Cameron County has seen.

I have been listening to inmate complaints for over 30 years and I know that there are explanations for mistreatment. I had a client who ate light bulbs. Another who set her mattress on fire. And others who made a regular habit of stuffing up toilets and causing floods.

I don't know if Cameron County jailers were faced with these types of problems, but I know that jailers reach decisions to deprive the inmates based on violations of jail rules. Sometimes jails run out of supplies, which may be the case with toilet paper here.

Part of the problem is sometimes everyone gets punished if the jail administrators can't figure out who is causing the problem. This creates moral and ethical problems. There is a specific provision in the Geneva Conventions that prohibits group punishment.

If it is true that the inmates go a week without recreation, that is a violation of the Jail Standards Commission:

Each facility shall have and implement a written plan, approved by the Commission, for inmate physical exercise and physical recreation. Documentation of physical exercise and physical recreation shall be maintained for Commission review. Each inmate shall be allowed one hour of supervised physical exercise or physical recreation at least three days per week. (Click on the title for reference to the Texas Jail Standards).

Part of the problem is sometimes neither inmates nor jailers know what conditions should be expected under the jail standards. The inmates don't know to ask for them and the jailers don't know what they should be providing.

The commissary is a different type of problem. One of the Democratic candidates for sheriff attempted to make an issue of giving a private contract on the commissary. I was glad he raised the issue, but doubted it would help him much in the campaign.

A private, profit motive for a captive market is not free enterprise. I don't know what the prices are, but there is no reason prices won't be extortionate because there is no competition. Why not give this contract to the Big Brothers, Sierra Club or the Kiwanians or the Hanna High band? Any nonprofit is better than a private, profit making group. Contracting out the courthouse restaurant is different from the jail commissary, because in the courthouse, if prices are too high or the food is old, people can go somewhere else.

Security is also often a problem. The women's jail does not report complaints of being controlled by prison gangs, but I have heard these complaints from Carrizales-Rucker.

The most disturbing thing about the letter remains the complaint that a jail minister is being excluded for fielding complaints. This creates problems both for the Free Exercise of Religion and for shining a light on the nature of the problem. If no one can report on what goes on in a jail, it becomes a dungeon.

Politics, noun. A strife of interests masquerading as a contest of principles. The conduct of public affairs for private advantage." —Ambrose Bierce

I am thinking this blog should adopt the policy of Homeland Security of posting warning colors, red, orange, whatever, to give a generally heightened sense of anxiety with no means of remedy. Red could be, "I am about to grind out another half-baked idea that struck me in the wee hours of the morning, so I'll probably change my mind about this later." Orange is, "This is going to be an insufferable load of bombastic drivel (my mind inexplicably moves into that mode sometimes) and in the unlikely event that I ever read it again myself, I'll be embarrassed." That sort of thing.

Anyway, this should be sort of a blend of red and orange, (is that where we get burnt orange?) which should be its own category that is even worse: I am going to talk about local politics....again.

This is in essence a guide to responding to local candidates. They should also be ranked with warning colors:

1. Judges and prosecutors are red and the higher the office, the more alarming the shade of red should be. Sheriffs are usually red, depending on the nature of your work.

2. Legislative offices such as State Rep, Senate, school board, TSC board, Port Authority are orange and the higher the office the scarier the orange.

3. Risible candidate posts. These are the ones either with no power or no responsibility. My old job of County Chairman comes to mind. I am not that great at describing colors. I hear words of color that do not conjure up any image at all--mauve, taupe. This warning color would be sort of like the flesh of a cadaver.

The orange offices can move to red if you actually want something such as a contract to tow cars or collect taxes.

The red offices can move to orange if you never commit any crimes and do not practice law.

The cadaver-colored offices move to red if you want to run for something, yourself.

Here are some of my problems with participating in local races at all:

1. Most of the time it doesn't matter who gets elected because no individual is stronger than the institutional structure of the office he holds. People ask, "Is he a good sheriff?" "Is he a good DA?" Even if the candidate is far more honest and less vindictive than the norm, this is hard to answer. It is like asking, "Is he a good flood victim?" "Is he a good junk yard dog?" Even though the office holder may face the job with integrity and courage, the nature of the job always ultimately beats the good person into a bloody stub of compromises and ugly deeds.

2. It is dangerous to oppose red zone incumbents. Only if they are really horrible can this even be considered. (I know the firebrands among you will view this as gutless). Even if you are certain an incumbent will lose, you usually must still support him, because even after he has been defeated he sits on the bench or in the DA's office or in the sheriff's office for another nine months.

3. I am not sure it is moral. I quit voting entirely during my Tolstoy period. (This period lingers with me, but in a weaker form). Matthew VII, 1, again.

When I spend a lot of energy in electoral politics I begin to get the type of foreboding described by Poe's Masque of the Red Death. As you may recall, the prince (or lord or king, some high muckety-muck) brought a thousand of the beautiful people into a great ballroom to hide from the plague that was killing off the poor in his regime. The plague comes in disguised in a fancy mask and everyone dies.

The striking thing to me about this story is not the morality play of mistreating the poor. It is the jarring, teeth-grinding contrast between the gaiety of the party and the dread engendered from the nasty future we know is inevitable. It is not that I don't enjoy the party of electoral politics (at least as a spectator sport), it is that there is a plague going on among the poor and it won't leave the privileged alone for long:

And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all.

"I'm Your Worst Nightmare, an MBA with a Badge"

"Did I remember to buy personal hygiene products for the women prisoners?

Does the commissary have Cheetos?

I think there should be a state constitutional amendment to allow individual counties to switch to a more administrative sheriffs department in which is a sheriff that meets a set of qualifications is hired not elected.

Patricia A.

I have been mulling this suggestion since I first read it. Sheriffs do seem poor fits for their jobs. Would appointing them improve the quality of justice and law enforcement?

It is hard for me to get my mind around an appointed sheriff. The sheriff has traditionally been the most politically powerful and usually the most popular figure in the county. The first sheriff I met was Wiley Barnes in Denton County jail. I was a seventeen year old high school student who had been picked up for fist fighting at the truck stop after the Senior Prom. I say "picked up" rather than "arrested," because Sheriff Wiley decided if someone was arrested or not when they got to the jail. We were "just some boys blowing off steam," and we should hold on to it because "we would both be getting all the fighting we wanted to do soon enough in Vietnam." So he let us go.

The sheriff was wrong about us both fighting in Vietnam; my adversary had wrapped his truck around a telephone pole and I escaped to a student deferment before the year was up. But the sheriff was usually right.

Sheriff Wiley was a slight man and dapper. He was one of the few Texas sheriffs I have known who did not wear a cowboy hat. He looked more like someone you would meet at a wine-tasting party. He was known, though, by his gloves. He carried around a pair of cream-colored lambskin gloves. The room would get quiet if he put on the gloves. No rowdy, no matter how big, could ever beat him in a fair fight and he personally controlled crime one on one.

The sheriff finally left office after the feds caught him warning a local doctor that the doctor's son would be arrested on a federal drug charge.

Before his fall, who would the county commissioners have appointed? Sheriff Wiley. Who would the legislature have chosen? Sheriff Wiley. Who would the governor have appointed? Sheriff Wiley.

But those were simpler times. There was one party and no one's opinion mattered but the good old boys'.

Who might be hired or appointed for sheriff today in Denton County? The governor would likely pick some blow-dried sissy Aggie who impressed him when he was working for the Senate as one of the sergeants at arms. The legislature would select a smart young lobbyist with a strong anti-abortion record. The county commissioners would pick a real estate developer who had previously served as Republican County Chairman.

Who would the likely Cameron County appointments be? Sophie and Jared are recent appointments, so they may be fairly characteristic of the choice on a county level. Carlos Cascos has the governor's ear, so Carlos would likely have a say if the governor got to pick. The former county treasurer, maybe? I'm not sure these would not be better sheriffs than we will elect, but it would certainly be different.

What qualifications does a sheriff need? In the rural areas, the sheriff performs the functions of the police. As more and more of a county is incorporated, the less important this function becomes. Nonetheless, for that role we would want an experienced cop. Maybe a degree or a masters in law enforcement? Social work? Anthropology? Forensic medicine? In Cameron County the sheriff must deal with a lot of bodies being dropped around. A sniffer canine trainer or a pathologist might be the ticket.

Cameron County Sheriff's office has some very clever cops who have knack for DNA and other scientific evidence. I can see them as good sheriffs but not good politicians. Maybe one could get an appointment in the unlikely event that a commissioners court wanted to pick the most qualified candidate.

Sheriffs also serve process. This takes more of an administrator hiring the right people. Maybe experience in management? Business degree?

And then there is the jail. This has become a long-term residence for thousands and the sheriff must fill all the roles of running a small company town that no one can leave. My local choice for this position would be Mike Leinart, the current chief jail administrator. If he had the final say and the right resources, I think it would be a different jail. He might be able to get an appointment, but I don't see him running for office; the qualities that would make him good at the job--honesty, in particular-- would make it hard for him to get elected.

One measure of what appointed sheriffs might look like would be to look at U.S. Marshals. In some ways this is comparing apples and oranges because the resources of the feds are so great and those of the county so small. But Marshals don't run jails, at least not here. These are all contracted out to public and private facilities and the results are bad.

The federal prisons I have seen are not bad (if ever a prison can be good). So I think the feds could run a decent jail if anyone wanted to do so.

What, though, are the qualities of a U.S. Marshal? They are virtually invisible. As much time as I spend with federal prisoners, I couldn't tell you who the U.S. Marshal is in the Southern District. Can anyone name a U.S. Marshal besides Matt Dillon and Wyatt Earp?

Even if we were to decide a constitutional amendment to hire sheriffs is a good idea, it would be a pie in the sky hope--much like waiting for the year of jubilee. Trying to take away the power of elected sheriffs would meet a juggernaut of opposition that would crush any silly reformer in its path. It would be even more difficult than trying to politically challenge J.P.'s or chiropractors.

Cameron County Jail Needs Gail Hanson

(None of us are perfect. --- Sometimes you need a little help from a friend)

First may I confess to the Seven Deadly Sins: Pride, Covetousness, Lust, Anger, Envy, Gluttony, Sloth. Especially Gluttony and Sloth, because aging has stolen the energy I once had for the others.

That having been said, the Cameron County Jail, and for that matter, the Cameron County Criminal Justice System, and for that matter, jails, prisons and criminal justice systems in the United States could use some improvement.

Sheriffs (including this Sheriff) become defensive when "their" jail is discussed. The recent election cycle showed the weird spectacle of a jail preacher talking about how nice the jail is and the good doctor discussing how good the care is, in defense of the sheriff who, no doubt, is practically perfect in every way.

So before we move to specifics, let me pontificate in general that the tensions between sheriffs, county commissioners, police agencies, and Texas State Government guarantee that all the jails in the State are substandard. Not that all would fail a gumming test by the toothless Texas Commission on Jail Standards, but none do what they are intended to do: that is, hold people who are presumed innocent in a humane manner until they can be tried and convicted or acquitted.

The best sheriff would probably not be a policeman at all, but have some management experience in running a hotel or a restaurant or a hospital or a school or a monastery. Unfortunately, for reasons mired in other social defects, the only candidates who present themselves for the august position tend to be cops. More on this after some reflection during the wee hours of the morning: "Why don't other folks, besides police officers, want to be sheriff?"

In the meantime, sheriffs cannot run a good jail, because commissioners won't give them the money to do so. Commissioners won't give them the money to do so, because they would rather hire someone for the road crew so they can get the patronage rather than giving it to the sheriff. Also, Commissioners won't give the money because felons and illegal immigrants who fill the jails can't vote. Also, Commissioners won't give the money because they are afraid some genius will start talking about criminals not needing to be in country clubs and sheriffs need to be tough guys to go with the police image rather than the motel manager image I think is more appropriate for the job.

Most folks don't worries too much about jail conditions unless they have a kid in jail. Did I ever tell you about my Republican Christian lawyer friend who ridiculed me for a couple of decades for talking about jail conditions until his son grew up, went bonkers, and spent months in and out of jail on minor offenses? All of a sudden he became interested in the 8th Amendment and prohibitions against cruel and unusual punishment. I felt I was being strong and kind by resisting saying,"I told you so," in the midst of his pain.

Does anyone remember when Cameron County Jailers were contracting tuberculosis from the inmates? Jails become a petri dish for disease and jailers (who mostly are there because they need a job and have families to support) catch those diseases.

This all leads up to the question on my mind: Isn't a shame, a scandal even, if Gail Hanson, private school administrator and jail pastor is excluded from the women's section of the jail because she advocates for the prisoners?