October 2007 In the News
Troubles Mount Within Texas Youth Detention Agency; 10/16/2007
Juvenile detainees as young as 13 years old slept on filthy mats in dormitories with broken, overflowing toilets and feces smeared on the walls. Denied outside recreation for weeks at a time, they ate bug-infested food, did school work that consisted of little more than crossword puzzles and defecated in bags. After months of glowing state reports, the squalid conditions were disclosed on Oct. 1 by state inspectors at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. They are another sign of the deep disarray of the Texas Youth Commission, the nation’s second-largest, after Florida’s, and most troubled juvenile corrections agency. The agency already faces state and federal investigations into accusations of sexual abuse by juvenile corrections officers.
Mom pans private prisons; 10/14/2007
LAREDO MORNING TIMES: The delayed discovery of squalid conditions at a privately run Texas Youth Commission jail was "a human failure" and stronger oversight is needed to prevent similar incidents, a key state senator said Friday."It was very simple that the monitors were not doing their job and there was a human failure," said Sen. John Whitmire, head of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "Who's monitoring the monitors?" Hearing called Whitmire, a Houston Democrat, called a committee hearing about a week after a Coke County juvenile lockup in Bronte operated by The GEO Group, Inc., was closed because of filthy conditions. A Texas Youth Commission ombudsman discovered the conditions, even though the facility had passed previous inspections by TYC monitors
Senators question monitoring of privately run prisons; 10/13/2007
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Senators demanded Friday to know who's monitoring the state's privately operated prisons, and questioned whether Texas should be using outside contractors for any of their corrections facilities. Their concerns followed the Texas Youth Commission's sudden closure this month of the privately run Coke County Juvenile Justice Center – a nearly 200-inmate facility in West Texas where top TYC administrators say they found atrocious conditions – and revelations that the officials charged with overseeing that facility weren't doing their jobs. Three of the four TYC monitors fired over the Coke County conditions had formerly worked for GEO Group Inc., the Florida-based company that operated the youth prison, a Dallas Morning News investigation has found. GEO, which still operates more than a dozen adult facilities in Texas, has been accused of providing poor health care and failing to protect inmates from abuse in states across the country.
Fired TYC monitors had worked for facility’s operator; 10/12/2007
Three monitors fired by the Texas Youth Commission last week for failing to report filthy and dangerous conditions at a privately run juvenile prison in West Texas had previously worked for the company they oversaw. Two of the quality assurance monitors were hired directly from caseworker positions with The GEO Group Inc. at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center, according to their job applications. The monitoring unit's supervisor also briefly worked for GEO at the youth prison near Bronte four years before being hired by TYC, records show. A clerk who was fired had previous GEO employment as well.
Girl alleges sex abuse in Texas prison; 10/09/2007
CHICAGO TRIBUNE: When the Chicago Tribune published the story last March of Shaquanda Cotton, the 14-year-old black girl from Paris, Texas, who was imprisoned for shoving a hall monitor at her high school, the article quickly provoked a national civil rights scandal because of apparent racial disparities in the way justice was administered in the small east Texas town. Shaquanda had no prior arrest record, and the hall monitor was not seriously injured. Yet the teenager was convicted in March 2006 of assault and sentenced by Lamar County Judge Chuck Superville to prison for up to 7 years. Just three months earlier, Superville sentenced a 14-year-old white girl, convicted of the more serious crime of arson, to probation. The furor that erupted over the disparity in how the two girls were treated prompted Texas authorities to release Shaquanda from prison three weeks after the Tribune article appeared.
TYC to check backgrounds of employees; 10/06/2007
Texas Youth Commission investigators looking into problems at a now-closed West Texas juvenile prison will look at employees to determine if anyone had any connections to the company that ran the facility. The state closed the Coke County Juvenile Center earlier in the week and canceled an $8 million annual contract with GEO Group Inc., which had operated the prison since 1994. Officials cited an ombudsman's report that described conditions including dirty bed sheets, feces-smeared cells and insects in the food. The center's 200 inmates were moved to other facilities. Seven employees, including four quality assurance monitors stationed at the Coke County facility, were fired. Elizabeth Lee, the agency's director of contract care, resigned, said Texas Youth Commission spokesman Jim Hurley.
Questions linger about West Texas youth prison closure; 10/06/2007
AUSTIN AMERICAN-STATESMAN: Demanding that critics back off, the head of the embattled Texas Youth Commission on Friday made public the details of conditions at a privately run West Texas youth prison that was closed this week. Dimitria Pope, the commission's acting executive director, released a 10-page audit report and 13 pages of photographs detailing sanitation and safety infractions at the 200-bed Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. The list includes broken smoke detectors, feces-smeared floors and ceiling lights, incorrect medical reports and dirty floors, bedding and clothing. Insects, dead and alive, were found in light fixtures and on the floor. Intercoms were inoperative. Treatment programs were in disarray. Some youths had to urinate and defecate in containers because their cells did not have toilets. Door locks did not work.
TYC investigates how 'deplorable conditions' at closed prison escaped detection; 10/03/2007
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: The Texas Youth Commission is investigating why juvenile inmates endured squalor and deprivation at a privately run West Texas prison that was repeatedly praised by TYC's own quality-assurance monitors. The agency began busing the 197 male inmates from the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center before dawn Tuesday. Officials also canceled an $8 million annual contract with operators of the state's largest private juvenile prison, citing "deplorable conditions." The problems found at the prison in Bronte, operated by the GEO Group Inc. of Florida, were described in a report by TYC Ombudsman Will Harrell. "There is a greater sense of fear and intimidation in this facility than perhaps any other I have been to," Mr. Harrell wrote.
TYC to move all inmates from W. Texas center, end contract; 10/01/2007
DALLAS MORNING NEWS: Texas Youth Commission officials will pull the 197 TYC inmates out of a West Texas juvenile justice center Tuesday and cancel their contract with the company that runs it, citing deplorable conditions at the state's largest privately operated juvenile prison. "The decisive action ... is a clear indication of the positive changes under way at the Texas Youth Commission," Gov. Rick Perry said Monday. "I am deeply disappointed that conditions at the facility have deteriorated to this point but am confident that today's actions will remedy the situation." The Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte, operated by the Florida-based GEO Group Inc. since 2003, has a history of abuse and neglect, including a 2006 suicide, allegations of sexual assault that were settled out of court and the 2004 death of a youth whose medical conditions were ignored. As recently as this spring, the prison realized it had hired a registered sex offender as a guard.