When TDCJ District Parole Officer Taylor Goodlett looks at his laptop computer screen each morning, he normally sees a lot of little green dots. The dots tell him where a high-risk offender on his caseload has gone and that he was, in fact, authorized to travel to those locations. Red dots, on the other hand, alert him that the offender might have gone astray.

Sam Houston State University senior Jason Robb plays the trumpet masterfully, but he isn’t one to blow his own horn. That’s why the university band drum major was “blown away” when representatives from TDCJ’s Correctional Training Department showed up at band practice recently. They made him an honorary member of the agency’s Honor Guard for his willingness to perform at the Fallen Officers Memorial Service in Huntsville last May on extremely short notice.

Not long after Mark Jones enlisted as a correctional officer at the Eastham Unit in October 1984, he had company. His older brother, James, followed right behind him, joining the security staff at the Ellis Unit just two months later. And every time Mark won a promotion over the next 22 years, James seemed to follow right behind him in winning one of his own. Like brother, like brother, you might say.