County jail inmates are often released in the dark of night with little or no money and no transportation. Despite tragic stories of death and assaults, lawmakers this year failed to approve legislation that would require releases during daylight hours. 

Aguilar on the denial of asylum petitions by border judges, Galbraith on the history of wind, Grissom talks to the head of the Jail Standards Commission, Hamilton on plans for the state's new online university, Murphy and Ramsey on political warchests at midyear, Philpott on Texas' trucker shortage, Ramsey talks data privacy and abortion with Susan Combs, Ramshaw on the Rick Perry's experimental adult stem cell procedure, Root on the response to The Response, M. Smith on the country's could-be next first lady and Tan on a few of the ways Texas will change on Sept. 1: The best of our best content from Aug. 1 to 5, 2011.

A favorite plot device on television and in movies, jailbreaks, at least in Texas, are pretty rare. But that doesn't stop inmates from trying. And trying.

The family of Amy Lynn Cowling today filed a lawsuit against Gregg County, alleging the inaction of jail officials there led to the death of the 33-year-old mother of three just after Christmas last year.

Beginning next year, jails like the one in Gregg County where Amy Lynn Cowling died could be required to tell state officials how many staff members leave their jobs every month. Experts say there likely is a correlation between high staff turnover rates and increased deaths. 

State jail officials would get a clearer picture of potential problems in county lockups under a bill a Senate panel considered on Tuesday that would require counties to report the monthly turnover rate among jailers.

To keep critical jail inspections going even as they cut funding to the agency that provides them, lawmakers are proposing that the counties pay for them.

Amy Lynn Cowling's death is just the most recent at the Gregg County Jail in Longview. Interviews and public documents reveal a troubled facility, where the staff turnover rate is unusually high and inmates report shoddy medical care. 

The jail conditions expert and professor at the University of Texas' LBJ School of Public Affairs on why maintaining treatment programs that keep offenders in their communities and reducing some of the harsh, long-term jail sentences often doled out in Texas' notoriously tough criminal justice system could be more cost-efficient and allow Texas to close prisons.

More than 280 inmates in county jails died from illnesses while in custody over a four-and-a-half-year period, according to data provided by the Texas attorney general and analyzed by The Texas Tribune. Many died of heart conditions, some of cancer or liver and kidney problems and others of afflictions ranging from AIDS to seizure disorders and pneumonia. There are no state standards for health care in county jails, but criminal justice advocates and correctional facility experts say the large number of illness-related deaths prove they're needed.

The first Hispanic sheriff in Harris County history on growing up as a child of legal immigrants, how his mom helped change his liberal views about illegal immigration and whether Houston is a sanctuary city.

A judge in Nueces County today dismissed a criminal indictment against Texas Commission on Jail Standards Executive Director Adan Muñoz, who was charged in connection with his release of information about a jailhouse suicide. Open government advocates have called the indictment outrageous.

Ramsey on the fourth University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll (with insights into the statewide races, issues, the budget, and Texans' view of the national scene), Hamilton and Thevenot in Galveston on the anniversary of Hurricane Ike, Ramshaw on secret hearings that separate children from their guardians, Hu on what former state Rep. Bill Zedler did for doctor-donors who were under investigation, Aguilar on the troubles around Mexico's bicentennial, Galbraith talks coal and wind with the head of the Sierra Club, E. Smith interviews state Rep. Debbie Riddle about tourism babies and godless liberals, Grissom on why complaints about city jails go unaddressed, Philpott on the debate that will apparently never happen and Stiles continues to put the major-party gubernatorial candidates on the map: The best of our best from September 13 to 17, 2010.

The Texas Department of Criminal Justice oversees most state jails. The Texas Commission on Jail Standards presides over county jails. But the 350 city jails across Texas are wholly unregulated. The jail commission receives dozens of complaints about the conditions inside municipal lockups — most commonly about sanitation, food, supervision and medical care — but they have no power to investigate. While critics are calling on state lawmakers to implement at least minimum standards, city officials worry that expensive new rules could result in the closure of their jails, which would mean that already overflowing county jails would get even more crowded.

The head of the state's Commission on Jail Standards could do time for being too open about a suicide in the Nueces County lockup. Is the indictment of Adan Muñoz retaliation by a sheriff his lawyer describes as a "crazy little bastard"? Regardless, an open government advocate calls it "outrageous."

Stiles on Bill White's donor-appointees, M. Smith on a form of meritless lawsuit that's still legal in Texas, Ramshaw on what federal health care reform means for the future of physician-owned specialty hospitals, Galbraith's interview with the chairman of the Public Utility Commission, Philpott on the latest flap over federal education funding, Grissom on the finally-in-compliance Dallas County Jail, Titus on the oiled pelicans of the BP spill, Hamilton's interview with the new chancellor of the Texas State University System, Ramsey on the political and legal definitions of residency, Hu on Barack Obama's visit to Austin and Aguilar on what the U.S. could be doing to aid Mexico: The best of our best from August 9 to 13, 2010.

Five of the nine members of the state's Commission on Jail Standards, which oversees the 245 county lockups, are elected officials from or employees of the counties whose facilities they regulate. Advocates say that's a conflict of interest, and they're calling for a change in the commission's makeup.

It wasn't so much a grilling as a polite discussion this morning between Harris County officials and members of the Texas Commission on Jail Standards. Despite continued overcrowding at the county's four facilities and ongoing concerns about inmate conditions, the county is expected in November to ask the commission for permission to continue filling the jails with hundreds of so-called "variance beds" — beds beyond the capacity for which the buildings were designed.