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Texas to try to break 'seemingly endless cycle of crises' at juvenile justice

Gainesville State School in Gainesville, Texas
Paul Flahive
Gainesville State School in Gainesville, Texas

The Texas Juvenile Justice Department is at a crossroads.

The department charged with jailing youth offenders has been in crisis for years. The U.S. Justice Department is investigating its secure facilities for physical and sexual abuse allegations — making it the only youth jailer currently under federal scrutiny.

The state’s Sunset Commission is expected to unveil the agency’s future on Thursday, and that future isn’t assured. Options legislators discussed ranged from pushing more money into the system some see as broken to possibly merging it with the also-troubled Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

“Since TJJD’s creation, the agency has been caught in a seemingly endless cycle of crises and instability…” read the Sunset Commission staff report on TJJD.

Parents and former inmates of the state TPR spoke to said the juvenile system itself can ensnare children in the same cycle.

“It's sad because [former juvenile inmates] all say like that this place didn’t help them,” said Michelle Gagnon. She explained this as tears streamed down her face.

Her son William was first sentenced to TJJD at age 10. First, he got into a fight and was referred to a juvenile diversion program. After an argument with the administrator of that program he erupted and smashed a TV. He was rearrested and sentenced to the state.

“A child doesn't just act out because they want to. A child acts up because they're going through things. They need help. And that's not help if they're putting them in a jail cell. Literally. These are kids,” Gagnon said.

William suffered abuse at the hands of his father, family members said. When his father was sent to prison, his behavior got worse.

He was sent three hours away to McLennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility — known more colloquially by either McLennan or Mart, the name of the town in which it sits.

She said he wasn’t the same when he came back earlier this year. He told her he saw sexual abuse by other youth. He saw fights. He tried to kill himself.

“I miss him being a kid,” Gagnon said. “I miss him. He feels so lost. It's like he's not himself anymore.”

William was in a cell during both the COVID-19 pandemic and one of the worst staffing crises in the agency’s history. TJJD had a 71% turnover rate in 2021 for direct care staff. At one point, it was so bad they had to bring in the National Guard. This summer, they stopped taking new youth, and they've slowly opened back up ever since.

Staff shortages are at the “primary root cause” for all of the agency's issues, according to the Sunset Commission report.

For kids inside, the shortage meant as many as 22 hours a day in a cell. At some facilities, youth urinated in containers because there weren’t enough staff to take them to bathrooms.

“Kids locked in their rooms are going to engage in more problematic behaviors," said Shandra Carter, interim director of TJJD at a June Sunset Commission hearing.

Carter, who took over the agency after the chairman of the TJJD board and its executive director stepped down earlier this year, said youth in a cell are going to engage in self harm more often. They are going to make suicide attempts and assault staff members.

“A kid in a room for 22 hours is like a shaken bottle of soda, and you open that door, and you open that lid, and you hope that you have enough people there to keep the situation safe,” she said.

A report from state auditors said a rotating cast of leadership had prevented them from getting their feet under them.

The struggles of the agency are no secret. Since 2017, about 20 TJJD employees have been arrested for sexual assault, having sexual contact with children, or physical abuse of youth in their care.

The Justice Department launched an investigation into sexual and physical abuse allegations last year. These are the same issues that tore apart its predecessor agency — the Texas Youth Commission — a decade ago.

“They would make us fight each other,” said Dieter Cantu of his time at Victory Field, a secure facility under the Texas Youth Commission, or TYC, located in Vernon, Texas.

“It was horrible. I mean, from extortion to staff abusing children to kind of turning their cheek when things were happening,” he said.

Officials shut down Victory Field, along with four others. TYC went from 5,000 kids to about around 800 under TJJD. And yet, state auditors with Sunset Commission said they have been unable to ensure the safety of kids in their care.

TJJD leaders have said they need more money — they’ve requested a nearly 50% larger budget of nearly $1 billion over two years. They want $40 million to update their aging rural facilities, four of which are more than 30 years old. They want $120 million to build two new, smaller, and urban facilities.

Keeping kids closer to home has long been at the top of child advocates' wish lists

Gagnon said her son William was back in TJJD custody — three hours away — after violating parole with a nonviolent offense.

“I worry about my son continuing to stay in this system over him to keep on going back and forth, back and forth. And not being able to live his life,” she said.

That highlights the core of the problem for Cantu. The agency isn’t helping kids turn their lives around — it is doing the opposite. Cantu — who regularly visits facilities with literacy resources — said TJJD still isn’t accomplishing youth rehabilitation or helping kids prepare for adult life.

“It's preparing you for the penitentiary. It’s preparing you for the big boy jail. That's all it's preparing you for,” he said.

TJJD has seen an uptick in hiring since raising starting salaries, allowing them to return to some normal programming. They are still months away from full staffing and are over capacity.

All that may change at Thursday’s Sunset Commission hearing, where legislators are expected to announce a path forward that could include complete reorganization — merging with the adult system or something less dramatic.

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Paul Flahive can be reached at Paul@tpr.org