My interviews with 3 American murderers show how tough...

TOUGH Texas justice is on its way to British prisons, with inmates having to earn their release and facing punishment for sitting around all day behind bars. The Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood is considering imposing penalties for those who refuse to work and scrapping automatic release of prisoners halfway through their terms.

Image Credit: The Sun [A person in white prison garb walks down a prison corridor.]

Instead, inspired by how the Deep South treats convicts, they would have to prove their good behaviour while being held at His Majesty’s pleasure to be eligible to be let out. The Sun was this week given rare access inside two strict Texas prisons where men and women serve time for the worst felonies.

Image Credit: The Sun [Lord High Chancellor Shadana Mahmood on a prison tour.]

We travelled with the Justice Secretary and a UK delegation as they looked for inspiration on how to reform our own overflowing prisons. In 2007, the huge inmate population of Texas was 153,000 prisoners — roughly the size of Cambridge. Since then it has cut that figure by more than 20,000, thanks in part to a system of rewarding good behaviour behind bars and punishing any failure to participate.

Image Credit: The Sun [Portrait of Lord High Chancellor Shadana Mahmood at the Estelle Prison in Huntsville, Texas.]

The Estelle Unit is a supermax prison, about 80 miles north of Houston, which holds 3,300 dangerous offenders. Unlike in the UK, Texan prisoners are forced to work behind bars, which in this prison means a shift in the onsite textile mill making fabric for prison uniforms.

Image Credit: The Sun [Portrait of an inmate in a white prison uniform.]

Two death row inmates are currently receiving medical treatment in the prison’s hospital wing, with the jail just a 20-minute drive from the execution unit in Huntsville — the most active chamber in the US. On average, seven people are put to death by the state of Texas every year — and so far in 2025 two inmates have already been executed.

Image Credit: The Sun [Inmate giving a presentation.]

Jimmy Delgado, 52, stabbed a man who owed him $300 for drugs, leaving his body face down on a beach. He had told fellow gang members to kill the victim — and when it seemed the man was not fully dead, he went back and slit his throat. Delgado — formerly a “sergeant” in the deadly US-based Mexican Mafia gang — has now served 25 years in prison, and found God after 13 years in solitary confinement.

Image Credit: The Sun [Inmates in prison uniforms line up at the commissary.]

He said: “I was in a high security unit. You learn how to make a routine and to build up a routine. “You just learn how to survive. I watched men’s minds snap. I witnessed men break. “But when I started to see my own mind slip, I caught it. And I decided from that point on that I was going to get out of seg.

Image Credit: The Sun [Shabana Mahmood and David Gauke at a rehabilitation center.]

“I can’t see being in a six by nine box for the rest of my life.”. He was accepted on to a minister programme for inmates and as part of his training had to confront his past life. Delgado said: “One of the women that was there asked me, ‘How many people have you hurt?’.

Image Credit: The Sun [Group photo of Justice Secretary Shabana Mahmood and others at the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.]

“And I said, ‘Well, I only killed one guy’. She said, ‘What about his mom? What about his dad? What about his children?’ I never thought about it like that.”. He is hopeful he can get out of prison in 2030, when he is first due for parole. Gang members can go through a renunciation scheme in Texas to prove they are no longer in their gang, and can even have their tattoos removed at an onsite clinic.

Image Credit: The Sun [Lord High Chancellor Shadana Mahmood speaking at a prison.]

Ray Davis, 51, was sentenced to 99 years for murder in 1995 after he shot a man in the head during a gang dispute. He said he initially treated jail as if he was still living on the streets with fellow criminals and intended to bide his time until 2040, when he would be eligible for parole.

Image Credit: The Sun [A man in a white prison uniform walks down a hallway.]

But thanks to an incentive scheme in Texas, he was given the chance to move that date forward 15 years through good behaviour. He told The Sun: “I messed my life up once — I’m not going to mess it up again. “If I earn this good time, I have a better chance of getting back out.”.

Image Credit: The Sun [Portrait of a smiling man in a white shirt.]

I definitely want to think more closely about what more we can do back home to move towards a similar system. Donald Ervin, 50, was 22 when he “messed up a robbery and murdered somebody”. He now teaches life skills to other inmates five days a week. Ervin told The Sun: “I’m an ex-gang member, an ex-drug dealer. That’s what I used to do every day before I decided to change my life.”.

Image Credit: The Sun [Shabana Mahmood and David Gauke visiting the Harris County Criminal Justice Center.]

When he first came to prison, he added, “we had a lot of gangs and a lot of extortion. Things have changed dramatically.”. His first parole hearing is due in 2029 and he says he now believes he can be “an asset to society”. Female prisoners in the Houston Women’s Empowerment Center share dorms with 48 other offenders and can only see family through thick glass for bi-weekly visits.

But because they have proven their good behaviour behind bars they have access to yoga classes, a garden and recreation time. When we visited the unit, the women were playing volleyball in the yard while a country song blasted from a boombox. The concept to allow prisoners to earn time off their sentences could be part of sweeping reforms to Britain’s justice system.