| UNFAIR PARK | Graffiti scrawled on the back of a road advertisment sits across from the Dallas County jail. Mike Brooks How winter storms push Texas jails and prisons to the brink. By Tyler Hicks FROZEN IN PLACE himself. A Navy veteran with 20 years of ser- vice, he had been caught with less than a gram of crack cocaine and charged with possession and evading arrest. As he told Houston Public Media in W 4 4 2021, he ran because, “to be honest with you, I feared for my life, being an African American male and not feeling that I’m fa- vored by the police.” His bond was $120,000, a sum far above what he and his family could afford. As he recounts his first days in jail, Van Zandt’s stories flow at a rapid clip. He suf- fers from anxiety, depression and post- traumatic stress disorder, he told the Observer, and his time in incarceration heightened those struggles. “If you put on orange, you’re guilty,” he says, referring to the orange jumpsuit he wore behind bars. hen Jerome Van Zandt was booked into Harris County Jail in November 2020, he was optimis- tic. “There’s no way I’ll be here more than three months,” he told “They treat you like an animal from day one.” Van Zandt spent seven months in jail. One of the low points arrived right around the time he was hoping to get out: the three- month mark, when a punishing winter storm hammered Texas. Like many jails and prisons throughout the state, Harris County’s lost access to wa- ter during the storm in February 2021. Van Zandt says the toilets filled with feces that festered for four days. At one point during the storm, instead of being served dinner, in- carcerated people like Van Zandt were served a slightly larger lunch. It was an ap- parent attempt at rationing. “Y’all should be good,” a corrections offi- cer told them, Van Zandt recounts. Limited water bottles were available, but as Kevin Mack, another incarcerated man in Harris County Jail, told the Texas Tribune last year, those bottles became part of the prison economy. Like marked-up ra- men and paper for letters home, bottled water became an elusive commodity some people were hoarding and others were clamoring to get. Van Zandt and others complained about the conditions behind bars, but the common refrain from guards was, “Everyone is suf- fering out there, too.” “Yeah, but we’re incarcerated,” Van Zandt would reply. “We can’t go anywhere. Some of us aren’t getting enough to eat or drink, and we have no idea if our people are OK.” Or, as Mason McCormick, a man incar- cerated at Dallas County Jail, told the Ob- server: “There was definitely a heightened sense of anxiety during that time. When the lights went out, some people’s imaginations ran wild. They thought the guards would just abandon us here.” There are many stories like this from across Texas: stories of debilitating anxiety, confusion and neglect. But in interviews with incarcerated people, experts, attorneys and advocates, another story emerges, one of a system averse to the kind of reforms and resources that would improve conditions behind bars. While the winter storm shined a light on the dreadful conditions endured by incarcerated people, little to nothing ap- pears to have been done about it. “Our needs aren’t met by the city or the county, even though they have the dollars,” says Tiara Cooper. A formerly incarcerated person, Cooper is a staunch advocate for jail reform who works with the coalition In De- fense of Black Lives Dallas. “Once again, I feel like the city of Dallas is letting people down, and incarcerated people especially. I don’t see a plan in place for if or when this happens again.” prison a “mindfuck.” The federal prison’s population is so var- J ied that, as she explains, “You’ll be standing in line and the person in front of you >> p6 une, a woman who was incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center, Carswell, in Fort Worth, calls that particular MONTH XX–MONTH XX, 2014 FEBRUARY 10–16, 2022 DALLAS OBSERVER DALLAS OBSERVER | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | MOVIES | CULTURE | NIGHT+DAY | FEATURE | SCHUTZE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS | CLASSIFIED | MUSIC | DISH | CULTURE | UNFAIR PARK | CONTENTS dallasobserver.com dallasobserver.com
