Editorial: Youth justice system needs reform; 4/8/2008
LARIAT: As the number of adults incarcerated in the United States has surged to more than 2 million in the past several years, another sad story has been unfolding in the juvenile justice system. Friday, CNN reported a host of gruesome offenses at the juvenile level. Accusations of mental, physical and sexual abuse are what one expects from the offender, not those sworn to uphold the law. In institutions as far south as Puerto Rico and as far north as New Jersey, the U.S. Justice Department has sued nine states and two territories for allegations of abuse and neglect, CNN reported.
Starting over with state’s young offenders; 4/7/2008
AMERICAN STATESMAN: Legislative leaders are seriously considering whether to abolish the Texas Youth Commission. Abolishment is a drastic step that deserves serious study - if the Legislature is serious about finding a better way to help troubled, especially dangerous, youths. A better way is not, “We can spend less state money on the commission and make somebody else pay for these kids.” For more than a year now the youth commission has struggled with the aftermath of revelations that some of its employees had been sexually involved with incarcerated youths, and that some in management either looked the other way or even suppressed efforts to confront the problem.
Editorial: Are TYC's days numbered? 4/6/2008
AMARILLO.COM: The dean of the Texas Senate has proposed a plan that at first blush makes great sense. Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman John Whitmire, D-Houston, wants to dismantle the Texas Youth Commission, an agency wracked by malfeasance and scandal in recent years. His alternative would be to send juvenile offenders to smaller facilities closer to their homes. What can be wrong with that? Why not allow a youngster from Amarillo spend his or time in detention near where family members can visit?
A bold idea; 4/6/2008
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: With a budget of more than $235 million, the Texas Youth Commission system currently holds about 2,800 young offenders. It maintains a costly bureaucracy with more than 4,100 employees, yet still cannot fill 440 positions to maintain an adequate guard/inmate ratio. John Whitmire, the Houston Democrat who chairs the Senate Criminal Justice Committee, figures that's a prohibitive cost to taxpayers for housing a population that could fit into a typical Texas high school.
Plan to close TYC gathers support; 4/5/2008
AMERICAN STATESMAN: A fledgling plan to close or drastically restructure the troubled Texas Youth Commission drew widespread initial support on Friday, as new details emerged about what Texas' new juvenile justice system would look like.It might piggyback some programs with the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, which funds county-based treatment programs for youths on probation. And it would not include any unfunded mandates for counties, according to several people involved in the ongoing talks at the Capitol. But, in a shift of sentiment from when officials first confirmed the plan, state Sen. John Whitmire said abolition of the troubled Youth Commission is appearing to make more sense than restructuring.
Youth commission could face closure, radical change, lawmakers say; 4/4/2008
AMERICAN STATESMAN: After spending a year trying to reform the Texas Youth Commission, some legislative leaders are discussing a new possibility: a drastic restructuring — and perhaps even shutting it down.State Sen. John Whitmire, who co-chairs a special legislative committee overseeing the Youth Commission reforms after allegations surfaced last year of sexual abuse of youths, confirmed Thursday that he and several other lawmakers are actively discussing plans to drastically restructure the troubled agency.One concept under discussion: lock up the most violent, most troubled offenders in a reduced number of lockups, run by a new incarnation of the Youth Commission or perhaps by a new youth division of Texas' adult prison system, and house the rest in locally based treatment and rehabilitation programs.
Sex abuse, violence alleged at teen jails across U.S. 4/4/2008
CNN: Girls as young as 13 say they were shackled for weeks at a time in Mississippi. A Texas teen was allegedly offered birthday cake in exchange for sex. A guard drove his knee into the neck of a frail suicidal Ohio boy after the youth was wrestled to the ground and held down by other guards who stripped him and covered his face with a smock, a state report said. More than two dozen girls at an Indiana lock-up describe "networking" -- their term for sneaking into each other's cells to have sex, with no interference from guards.
Houston Sen. Whitmire wants to abolish troubled TYC; 4/3/2008
HOUSTON CHRONICLE: The Texas Senate's leader on prison policy has a novel idea for the state's $235-million-a year system of juvenile corrections: Abolish it. John Whitmire, a Democrat from Houston who chairs the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice, said no amount of reforms at the Texas Youth Commission will correct what he sees as an expensive, poorly conceived, top-heavy, ineffective bureaucratic operation that's better known for its sex abuse scandals than its graduation rates. "We're spending ($235) million a year and we've got these broken-down, unsafe facilities in all the wrong places," Whitmire said this week, adding that he would replace the state system with smaller lockups closer to where most offenders live.