Children & the Law Blog

In an update to our July 12 post Sunset on TYC? A Timeline and Update, the Houston Chronicle reported that the conservator of the Texas Youth Commission urged Governor Rick Perry to end the TYC’s conservatorship by July 31.

The conservator of the Texas Youth Commission has told Gov. Rick Perry that the embattled state juvenile prison system is almost done with changes needed to operate on its own again.

Richard Nedelkoff has recommended that the agency be removed from a conservatorship by July 31, almost 16 months after the TYC was put into forced management amid an inmate sex-abuse scandal and revelations of possible cover-ups.

TYC spokesman Jim Hurley said the recommendation to legislative leaders was “based on completing those things that need to be done” to ensure that the agency is repaired.

“If those are not completed (by July 31), then that pushes that date back,” Hurley told the Austin American-Statesman.

Perry spokeswoman Krista Piferrer said the governor had not made a decision.

“Obviously, the governor would like to end the conservatorship when the time is right, but that decision is one we’ll need to work out with the legislative leadership,” she said.

News of Nedelkoff’s recommendation drew silence from legislative leaders, some of whom said the agency was still lagging on several key initiatives.

Those include implementing new rehabilitation programs and a new classification system, ramping up the training of correctional officers, removing youths serving time for misdemeanor crimes and installing new security cameras at lockups.