A January audit of Harris County inmates’ commissary accounts identified critical oversights and financial control failures, including violations of state law and county policies.
It’s the latest in a trio of reports published by the Harris County Auditor’s Office since 2022 that have warned of inadequate or non-existent documentation, excessive employee access to sensitive financial information and discrepancies between the jail’s inmate management and commissary account systems.
According to the audit, the sheriff’s office was unable to provide receipts for payments made from inmate’s bank accounts across a two-month period, which one expert called “unusual.”…