By now you have probably heard about the scandal that has shaken the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As a member of the House Committee on Corrections, I have spent much of the past several weeks working with the committee to try to untangle this mess.

For those who have not followed this, here are some basics. TYC is our state’s youth prison system. It houses everyone who is convicted of a serious crime (or in some cases, several less serious crimes) who is too young to be sentenced as an adult. Unlike adults, youths can be confined for an undetermined amount of time – essentially until TYC believes them no longer to be a threat, or until they “age out” of the system (in which case they can be moved to the adult system under some circumstances.)

TYC operates about two dozen facilities housing around 4,000 youths, none of which are in major cities, and many of which are in isolated areas. Staff are hard to hire and harder to keep, particularly for night shifts. Superintendents run each unit with little intervention from the central office in Austin. In general, the kids are assigned to units without regard to their ages, the location of their families, or the severity or nature of their offenses. Some of the dorms are “ward” style, with nothing to separate the kids from each other. Kids range in age from 10 to 20. There have been several large fights in recent years, with injuries to youth and staff.

Against that backdrop we now have numerous accusations of sexual contact between staff and youths, at several different facilities. In at least some of the cases, the youths were allegedly not willing participants. In others, there may have been “consent”, or the youth may have actually initiated the activity, but any sexual contact would still be a violation of state law. Accusations of such activities were apparently ignored by TYC management in Austin, even when the reports came from staff members reporting suspicious behavior of other staff.

It seems like every day the stories get worse. Today we heard from medical authorities that youths continue to be regularly treated for broken arms as a result of improper restraint techniques used in some units.

I was one of many legislators who called on the Governor to fire the TYC board and appoint a “conservator”. A conservator is someone from outside the system who is brought in temporaily to take control. Unfortunately, only half of this occurred. The board members quit, but nobody has been appointed to replace them. So, TYC is now being run by a new acting executive director who reports only to himself. The Governor appointed a “special master” to make policy recommendations, but that person has no power to actually make changes.

Our committee has developed a series of tentative recommendations which we are working to put into legislation. (Some of these were already filed as bills before the scandal broke, as a result of work investigations by the committee before the recent stories of abuse broke.) They include:

- immediately appoint a conservator from outside of TYC, with the power to oversee the agency until an entire new board can be appointed and take control; - require that some of the new board members have specific expertise, such as a current or former juvenile judge, a doctor, a parent of a current or former inmate, etc. - give the existing special prosecutor for the adult prison system the authority to prosecute crimes within TYC, since local district attorneys in rural counties often do not have the resources to prosecute crimes that occur “inside the walls”; - require TYC to establish a system to separate youths by age, severity and type of offense, and other appropriate categories; - establish an ombudsman and/or an independent office of youth advocacy, to work with TYC to assure that youths receive the medical and mental health treatment they need and are protected from abuse; - improve criminal background checks for staff; - add cameras and make other security improvements to improve safety for staff and youths; - close facilities that cannot reasonably be made safe; and - review pay structures to improve recruiting and retention.

Several arrests have been made, several other staff members have quit or been fired, and the investigation is continuing on many levels. If you or someone you know has personal knowledge of any abusive situation within TYC, I encourage you to call the TYC tip line at 1-866-477-8354.

Scott Hochberg
State Representative
District 137 - Southwest Houston