Texas Youth Commission

The Texas Youth Commission (TYC) is the state’s juvenile corrections agency. It provides care, custody, rehabilitation and reestablishment into society for Texas most chronically delinquent or serious juvenile offenders. A youth’s sentencing can begin at TYC and depending on the juvenile’s progress; the sentencing may be completed in an adult prison system.  The ages of youth at the facilities are between the ages of 10 and 17 years old.[1] 

Crisis and Conservatorship

During the 80^th Texas legislature reports of abuse and cover up by top officials were exposed by allegations from current and former youths at TYC facilities.  “An internal report, detailing how a sexual molestation scandal went undetected for more than a year in the Texas Youth Commission, was altered to delete references that top agency officials were alerted to the abuse but did nothing to stop it.”[2] Soon after the release of the reports several top officials resigned. The Legislature and Governor then imposed a force management takeover and put the agency in conservatorship status, which gives a single official concentrated power over an agency for an emergency.[3] The conservator’s duty is to properly assess each aspect of TYC, including facilities, treatment programs and educational services. The Legislature then created the office of independent ombudsman and appointed Will Harrell as the first head ombudsman. “The office of independent ombudsman is a state agency established for the purpose of investigating, evaluating, and securing the rights of the children committed to the commission, including a child released under supervision before final discharge.”[4]

TYC in 2008

TYC is currently working towards ending its conservatorship by late 2008. However, this legislative session TYC will be up for review by the Sunset Advisory Commission. In November 2008, the Sunset Committee will issue a report with recommendations for TYC. The Texas Legislature created the Sunset Advisory Commission to identify and eliminate waste, duplication, and inefficiency in government agencies. The commission reviews policies and programs of government agencies every 12 years. The commission questions the need for each agency, looks for potential duplication of other public services or programs, and considers new and innovative changes to improve each agency’s operations and activities.[5]

While TYC has made some substantial progress since TYC has been under conservatorship, there still is some work to be done.  This report lays out some possible recommendations for a juvenile correctional agency.

General Recommendations for a Juvenile Correctional Agency:

Education: A juvenile correctional facility should provide adequate education. The goal is for the student to gain educational skills while they are at the facility.[6] The curriculum should follow the Texas Administrative Code, Title 19, Part II Chapter 74. Even though correctional facilities such as TYC are exempted from specific requirements of State education policies, the correctional facility should nevertheless adopt the same policies as the State. The facilities should also offer a special education program.  There should be an assessment of where the student is at educationally when they arrive at the facility. After the assessment students should receive help from teachers in order to maximize their educational experience.  Each student should have the proper amount of time to learn the curriculum and teachers should be provided a sufficient amount of time to teach the curriculum.

Currently, TYC is attempting to update educational services at their facilities[7]. “40% of youth at TYC are eligible for federal special education programming; a significant portion of youth sent to TYC are school dropouts; and the median reading and math achievement levels of TYC youth are four and five years behind their peers, respectively.” [8]

The office of the independent ombudsman has put together a full report on TYC’s educational services and recommendations that should be made.[9]

Medical issues: A facility should have the proper medical staff and medicine available for youths at the facilities. Medicine is a necessity and not a privilege that can be taken away as a source of punishment for a person’s bad behavior. There should be an established baseline level of care required for the individual youths.  When the child first arrives at the facilities there should be an assessment of the children’s mental health needs. There also needs to be personnel to provide services for children with other medical needs such as chemical dependency and sexual health.

TYC currently lacks the personnel necessary to successfully provide these services. There are currently long waitlists for children who desperately need medical, mental and other services[10].

-          TYC needs to hire more licensed sex therapy and chemical dependency experts to administer treatment.

-           Children adjudicated as sex offenders may have deferred registration and require the successful completion of these treatments as part of their court ordered treatment. The long waitlists for these treatments should be reduced, if not eliminated; so that these children can quickly get the treatment they need to meet their court ordered obligations.

-          There also needs to be special emphasis placed on the needs of girls and the differences in which girls recover from chemical dependency.

Treatment: Girls and boys should be in separate facilities than one another. Female youths have different needs than males and those needs should be addressed properly. The facilities need to provide appropriate treatment and programming for girls.

As of now there is only one facility for female offenders, the Ron Jackson Unit.  At TYC there are substantial differences in the programming and services offered to male and female youth.

 Currently there are no licensed sex offender treatment providers who are employed at the Ron Jackson female unit. TYC was recently sued by the ACLU in June, 2008 for allegations concerning strip searches conducted at the Ron Jackson unit. The OIO made a site visit to Ron Jackson that revealed that in the security unit, girls were not allowed to wear undergarments even while on behavior management program and were reportedly transported to the infirmary and recreation by male staff while wearing no garments. The girls were provided diapers to wear while menstruating if they were in the security unit. These issues were reported to the Superintendent and within a week of the report these concerns were met to the satisfaction of the OIO.[11]

Some female offenders with a priority one need (high need) for sex offender treatment or capital treatments are not available because they are not offered at the Ron Jackson facility. Since they are not available female offenders are missing out on the chance to get help.[12]

Disciplinary: A correctional facility should have the proper protocol to deal with disciplinary issues by youths at the facilities and for staff members who over step their power of authority. There should be a policy enacted to help establish accountability for youth and staff member’s actions.   Medical necessities should not be withheld as punishment for behavior issues by the youths at the facilities. Overall a youth’s penalty for a bad action should not outweigh the action that the youth did.

At TYC there has been countless number of youth disciplinary problems. Some of the following disciplinary issues have occurred at TYC facilities[13]:

-          Withholding medication. There has been a past problem of youth in TYC facilities having their medication withheld as punishment because of their own behavior problems or due to other youth’s behavior problem. There was also the disciplinary denial of medication for youth caught “cheeking” medication.

-          OC Pepper Spray Incidents. There has been a substantial decline of OC pepper spray incidents but there still are concerns. Many officers in TYC facilities are still using OC spray on the youth inmates. OC (Oleoresin Capsicum) is concentrated oil obtained from extraction of “hot” peppers.  Inhalation of the spray or contact with the skin and eyes can cause serious irritation[14].

-          Isolation punishment. Isolation punishment is putting incorrigible youths in solitary cells for extended periods of time. It has been argued that this kind of punishment may violate the youth’s right since they have not been convicted of the act that led them to isolation[15]. Isolation punishment has had a substantial decline since the beginning of the year. However, there still are reported incidents of isolation being used as a punishment. 

-          Participants of sex offender treatment programs. Some youths at the TYC facilities have a waiver for sex offender registration if they successfully complete sex offender treatment prior to release. Some students felt intimidated by staff members handing out consequences so quickly because if they are kicked out they might have to register as a sex offender.

Security: A juvenile facility should have a major focus on safety. This means there needs to be a close ratio of officers to children and security cameras in areas that an officer can’t be at.  There needs to be specifications in the type of training the officers have such as addressing the use of restraints and pepper spray, supervising units including sex offenders, working with juvenile female offenders, preventing and investigating staff sexual misconduct with youth in custody, monitoring and delivery of medical and mental health services, and preventing bullying and coercion among youth in the facility.

Currently Senate Bill 103 establishes that at TYC facilities Juvenile Correction Officers have 300 hours of training and that the commission must maintain a ration of not less than one guard for every 12 persons committed to the facility.[16]

Regionalization: Regionalization of youth correctional facilities helps the youths in custody maintain a connection with the community. Some of the advantages of regionalization are that the youths are:

1.      Closer to family and community

2.      Closer to mental health resources

3.      Easier access to educational resources

4.      Easier access to medical care

5.      A larger and more qualified job applicant pool

6.      Lower costs over time due to lower recidivism rates

 

Currently there are eleven TYC institutions and nine halfway houses located in Texas. Many youths located at TYC facilities are away from their families and the community.

 

 

 

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