Gov. Elect Gina Hinojosa: Texas Must End Jail Abuse

Congratulations, and a Clear Expectation

I want to begin with respect. Congratulations to Gov. Elect Gina Hinojosa. Leadership matters, and so does the willingness to listen when people say the system is hurting them. But for families who have lost someone in custody, for people who say they were abused behind jail walls, and for communities that no longer trust local institutions, congratulations are not enough.

What matters next is whether power is used to protect people. That means looking directly at places where the public has been told not to look: county jails, detention units, complaint processes, court practices and the networks that decide which stories get investigated and which get buried.

Jail Deaths Demand Truth, Not Silence

Texas has seen too much grief tied to incarceration and detention. When a person dies in jail, the public should not have to fight for basic facts. Families deserve timelines, medical records where law permits, custody information, preserved video, dispatch logs and an investigation independent enough to be trusted. When records exist, they should be reviewed honestly; when records are missing, that absence matters too.

I am not saying every jail death is the result of a crime. I am saying every jail death deserves a full and honest accounting. A system that can lock people up can also explain what happened to them. If warnings were missed, if care was delayed, if force was used, or if records do not add up, Texans deserve to know.

Alleged Criminal Actions in Judicial and Custody Systems

People across Texas have reported abuse, retaliation, coercion, neglect and misconduct connected to detention and the courts. These claims must be handled carefully. An allegation is not proof, and no one should be convicted in headlines. But dismissing credible allegations without evidence is also a failure of justice.

The answer is disciplined accountability: secure the records, protect witnesses, test claims against documents, and follow the facts wherever they lead. If evidence shows criminal actions by officials, employees or others with power, then the law must apply to them. A badge, a title or a position in the courthouse cannot place anyone above the truth.

What Texas Should Do Now

My congratulations to Gina Hinojosa come with a request that I believe many Texans share: make transparency real, make investigations independent, and make abuse costly for the institutions that allow it. Texas should not accept jail deaths, secrecy and corruption allegations as ordinary. No badge, title or office should shield credible evidence from review. The public deserves action it can measure: records released, investigations opened, abuses stopped and accountability where the facts prove wrongdoing.

I would also like to meet with Gov. Elect Gina Hinojosa to talk about the targeting of Texans and U.S. citizens as a whole. I believe that conversation needs to happen in the open, guided by records and by the experiences of people who have been ignored, dismissed or harmed by the systems meant to serve them.

This is the time to stop looking away. The people harmed by broken systems have waited long enough for the state to treat their lives as worth protecting.