HOUSTON -- Congress was in session at Houston City Hall on Friday. Actually, a Houston congresswoman and the head of a U.S. House committee held a congressional field hearing in the city council chambers.

“This hearing is premised on the concepts of justice,” Congresswoman Sheila Jackson Lee said to open the hearing with John Conyers, the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee.

The focus of the hearing is on what Jackson Lee and others claim to be a broken judicial system in Harris County.

“We have so much work to do, unfinished business to clean up. And you hardly know where to begin,” said Conyers.

 For critics of the Harris County criminal justice system, where to begin is clear. Jail overcrowding and alleged inmate abuse; racist e-mails at the sheriff’s and district attorney’s offices and a grand jury that declined to indict a Pasadena homeowner after he shot to unarmed burglars.

It is why more than 120 people showed up for Friday’s hearing. Including Sean Ibarra, who along with his brother, was arrested by Harris County Sheriff’s deputies as they recorded deputies arresting a neighbor on drug charges.

They eventually settled a civil rights lawsuit against the county, but claim they have since been harassed by the sheriff’s office and are a part of another lawsuit against the sheriff’s office.

“The Harris County deputies stormed into my house, beat me and beat my brother. (They) nearly beat my mother,” Ibarra said during the hearing.

In essence, the field hearing is only the first step said Jackson Lee. She hopes it is a prelude to a full-scale congressional hearing.

Harris County Sheriff Tommy Thomas called the hearing, “merely election-year political posturing,” and said that much of the criticism against him and the sheriff’s office is “frivolous, exaggerated or without merit.”

As sheriff, I recognize the confidence entrusted me by the citizens of Harris County and I remain committed to maintaining the highest levels of professionalism and integrity the citizens of Harris County deserve and expect,” Thomas said in a statement. “In the event that this informal congressional hearing raises any issue of substance, the public may rest assured that I will respond appropriately.”