Bexar County Jail

Jail Layout

Interview with John, Raquel, Colby, Nikki, Lea and Hoyllwood


JM: How many different blocks were there?
John: They don't call them blocks. They call them pods. There were 12 where I was.
Raquel: I don't remeber. There was A, B, C, D letterings...
Colby: There are 3 towers on each floor except basement. Each tower were named A, B and C tower.
Nikki: I am not sure
Lea: many, serious offenders minor offenders pregnant people crazy people.
Hoyllwood: I dunno. They were all labeled in abc order, same for the men's side of the building. It didn't really matter how many there were, they weren't all being used. most of them were empty actually while all of the prisoners were contained in a few of the cells. It was way over crowded. I began wondering at the point when I saw this if police were able to count.

JM: Did they have names? If so, what were they?
John: A,B,C,D, etc.
Nikki: A, B, C, and D
Hoyllwood: Just Cell A, Cell B, Cell C, Cell D, ect.

JM: Which inmates were housed in the different blocks?
John: Trustees and the general population.
Raquel: Medical, Normal, Solitary, that's all I can think of
Nikki: an officer from classification comes to interview you and they decide where to put you, depending on how you answer their questions, like if you are a gang member, bi-sexual, graduate, etc.
Hoyllwood: no one was put into any particular block. We were all thrown in with each other no matter what we were in for. Like I said, I was in with a woman that tried to kill her boyfriend. I was in on a false charge of theft 50-500.

JM: What do you remember being the nicest and worst parts about the different blocks?
John: Trustees got extra food and went to work and just hung out. In the general population, people got raped and beaten.
Raquel: Nothing is nice about jail.
Colby: Initial intake is a bummer (General Population) after you have been assigned your regular housing unit, it gets better
Nikki: I once was in A block and witnessed a horrible fight where a girl beat up another girl in the bunk next to mine and bloodied her pretty bad and the special task force came in to separate them and took both of them out. Neither one returned. I found out that A block is for high risk.
Hoyllwood: There was nothing nice about the blocks. It seemed like every they put me in a new block, it got smaller and smaller. The worst thing would have to be the cold. I went home sick after leaving because it was so cold.