Children & the Law Blog

It was announced on June 6, 2008, in the Waco Tribune-Herald and Grits for Breakfast that the Texas Youth Commission will be replacing its long term isolation program for violent incarcerated youths with a “behavior management program” due to staffing shortages.

A staffing shortage at a local Texas Youth Commission facility should be alleviated by the state’s decision to shut down a program that isolated violent youths.

Effective this week, the state discontinued a program known as aggression management, TYC spokesman Jim Hurley said. It targeted youths who assaulted staff or other inmates while incarcerated, isolating them in individual cells for extended periods of time, he said.

The program was housed at one of the two TYC units in Mart, with youths being sent there from juvenile prisons all over the state, Hurley said. It had the capacity for 24 youths and required 40 staff members.

As TYC has continued to examine its practices in light of an abuse scandal that rocked the agency last year, it has the agency last year, it has determined the program does not reflect national best practices in dealing with youth offenders, Hurley said. So the state decided to discontinue it.

To fill the gap, TYC is revamping its “behavior management program, which is conducted at all TYC facilities, Hurley said. It will be called Redirect and will revolve around a specialized treatment curriculum designed to manage aggressive youths.

The revamped program will focus on getting inmates to recognize what triggers their violent behavior so they can stop it, Hurley said. He added that it will operate on a privilege system, rather than a punitive one.

Each facility will continue to have so-called security cells where violent youths can be isolated if necessary, Hurley said. However, the cells will be used only for short periods of time.

“It won’t be sticking a kid in there for months on end,” he said.

The 40 staff members who worked for the discontinued program will be transferred to other areas of Unit I at Mart, Hurley said. Since the facility has a shortage of juvenile corrections officers, the shift should ease understaffing there, he said.

Unit I at the campus serves as an intake unit for all males who come into the TYC system. Once they are processed there, they are sent to different facilities throughout the state.

Unit II is a regular correctional facility, serving youths from this region.

Source: Culp, Cindy V., “TYC Violent Youths Program Scrapped” (June 6, 2008). Waco Tribune-Herald. Available at: http://www.wacotrib.com/news/content/news/stories/2008/06/06/wactyc.html