This month saw the deaths of two Harris County inmates, one of whom passed away following his transfer to a private prison in Louisiana—a routine procedure meant to alleviate overcrowding in the downtown Houston county jail.
The 29-year-old Erick Carlson was arrested on Jan. 5 on charges of retaliation and unauthorized possession of a handgun by a felon. He was moved to the LaSalle Correctional Center, a privately run jail in Louisiana that is about 300 miles distant, on January 17. According to the Harris County Sheriff’s Office, he was admitted to the hospital one week later on January 24 for an unidentified medical ailment. The next day, Carlson passed away.
Days before Carlson took his final breath, another inmate passed away while being held at the Harris County Jail. According to court documents, Denaly Matute, 70, was arrested on December 5 on charges of violent assault of a family member. According to the sheriff’s office, he was sent to Ben Taub Hospital almost a month later due to a pre-existing medical issue. At approximately 4:12 p.m. on January 19, he was pronounced deceased.
These are the first two deaths at the Harris County Jail that have been reported this year. Compared to 2023, when at least 19 individuals died while in detention, at least 10 people perished last year.
While Carlson, who passed away in Louisiana, will not be included in the state’s continuous count of in-custody deaths even though he was a prisoner in Harris County, Matute’s death will. The Texas Commission of Jail Standards’ executive director, Brandon Wood, stated that Harris County cannot be held accountable for killings that take place outside of the state. They are also unable to punish LaSalle.
In a prior interview with Houston Public Media late last year, Wood stated, “We view our authority and ability to address that specific inmate as basically ending at the state line because the individual is no longer confined within the state of Texas.”
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The county uses a number of private prisons, including the LaSalle Correctional Center, to relieve the Harris County Jail’s ongoing overcrowding and understaffing. Three of the prisons are outside of Texas: the Tallahatchie County Correctional Facility in Mississippi, LaSalle in Louisiana, and LaSalle Natchitoches Parish Detention Center in the same state.
Advocates for jail reform, such as Krish Gundu, executive director of Texas Jail Project, have criticized this practice, claiming that the distance increases inmate risk and makes oversight challenging.
According to Gundu, we have effectively established a framework that allows us to engage in accountability ping pong. Since the killing occurred in LaSalle, Louisiana, the sheriff’s office may claim that it is not their fault. LaSalle may respond, “Well, we’re just a holding facility for the sheriff’s office, and they don’t have to investigate, and none of the usual protocols and procedures are followed.”
According to reports, Carlson is the third inmate from Harris County to pass away following a transfer to the LaSalle Correctional Center in recent years: 35 years old In April of last year, 29-year-old Jaleen Anderson passed away, while Billie Davis passed away in February of 2022.
According to Gundu, we don’t confront the difficult questions of what went wrong, what could have been avoided, and how we may avoid this in the future. These deaths simply continue to occur and we never learn anything from them.
