Grooming Juveniles for Adult Prisons

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10 months after scandal, problems plague Texas Youth Commission

Officials tout improved system; advocates argue changes are marginal

Ten months after its self-destruction – the abrupt payoff for years of beatings, rapes and depravities that made it a national disgrace – the Texas Youth Commission stumbles toward reform.

It has fresh programs, as ordered by the Legislature, and new management in place. But as Jon Halt sees it, one basic defect remains: "They still treat kids like dirt."

Mr. Halt's 16-year-old son was sexually assaulted by another inmate at a TYC prison in March. His frustration with the agency's response led him to join a watchdog group formed by inmates' families in the wake of this year's scandal.

"If there's any improvement at TYC," he said, "it's very minute, as far as I can see."

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"It's in a state of crisis," said Richard LaVallo, an attorney with the Austin youth rights group Advocacy Inc. "A major change has to occur."

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{O}utside experts believe the agency remains chained to an outmoded model – one based on punishment that is dealt from large, remote prisons.

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"The way they're going, a correctional model, is a dead loser," said Dr. Barry Krisberg, president of the National Council on Crime and Delinquency. "That's not going to get them anyplace. It's never gotten anyone anyplace, except court."

TYC came apart in February, when The Dallas Morning News and the Web site of The Texas Observer revealed that administrators at a West Texas youth prison had been accused of sexually abusing inmates.

Continued revelations by The News portrayed an agency capable of one outrage after another: youth beatings, lax medical care, shady business dealings, sloppy schooling and a culture of retaliation against whistleblowers.

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Legislation passed in May was supposed to fix all that. To some degree, said Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Plano, it did: "We probably don't have management raping kids now."

Mr. Madden, a sponsor of the reform bill, cited a few other beneficial changes. Youth who commit misdemeanors are no longer sent to TYC. An independent ombudsman has hired staff, new guards are getting more training and a stronger internal investigations unit has pursued dozens of cases of TYC employee misconduct.

"I'm beginning to have a little confidence that improvements are being made," he said. "But we need to see results."

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Juvenile justice advocates accused TYC of using pepper spray to paper over staff shortages and other problems.

"In order to exercise control, they're just going to use pepper spray," said attorney LaVallo of Advocacy Inc., which has sued TYC over the expanded use of the spray. "Don't call what you're doing rehabilitation. ... Just punish them and groom them for the adult prison system."


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1. Pepper spray

Many see the issue of pepper spray as a symptom and a symbol of TYC's inability to right itself.

Legal action and bitter complaints notwithstanding, Ms. Pope said she has no regrets regarding the use of pepper spray. Too many inmates and guards were being injured during physical restraints, she said. "It wasn't just, 'Hey, let's just go gas these kids.' "

Bill Bush, a college professor writing a history of TYC, said the wide use of pepper spray exposes the agency's punitive tendencies. "I don't really think they're complying with the spirit of that law at all," he said.

Mr. Bush's book, The Origins of the Super-Predator: Race and Juvenile Delinquency in 20th Century Texas, is to be published next year. He said the current state of TYC reminds him of the agency in the late 1960s, another period of scandal, shortly before a federal judge declared the agency's treatment of youth to be unconstitutional.