Tuesday, July 31, 2007

Good stuff from Texas Prison Bidness

The blog Texas Prison Bidness has several informative posts up that deserve Grits readers' attention:

6 comments:

Anonymous said...

If TYC would shuttle their plans on closing more facilities in the next year and concentrate on lowering youth populations at their existing facilities you would be amazed by the outcome.

This would make sense and something some people really do not understand. If we are striving for a safe culture for both youth and staff we should all strive to keep the contract beds away and keep our existing facilities.

All TYC staff should get on board for this endeavor because it will effect you even if your facility is not closed. If you have been around long enough you know that your budgeted population will swell to 20,30, 40, over budgeted and you will still be short staffed.

The answer you will receive is managed the situation. We need help in this area more than ever and it is a goal we can all strive for if we just continue to push and call our state representatives and let them know how important this issue is with us.

We should all strive for a common goal and put this back-biting and bickering amongst ourselves aside.

Anonymous said...

Dear Grits:

With all the corrpution in TDCJ and TYC, don't you think its time for the Feds to get involved again. It seem that the State of Texas can't get it right the first time around. Back when the feds were here, things went right, corruption was gone, building tenders was gone, bullying by the guards was put to a stop. Now that the feds are out of the picture, TDCJ and TYC have gone to hell in a handbasket.

Anonymous said...

What could possibly be the reason to send youth committed to the Texas Youth Commission to a private contractor?

1) Money
2) Better Facilities
3) Better paid workers
4) Highly trained workforce
5) Administrators that have
juvenile experience

Can someone find the truth behind the real reasons?

Anonymous said...

To Outlawsprincess: How do you think TDCJ, formerly, TDC, received the majority of their funding? IT WAS THE FEDERAL COURT CASE! The lege continued to pour money down the black hole to "Get us out from under the court case". The pigs were steadily feeding at the money trough. Many times I heard TDCJ Administrators say,"We need to ask for this now before the court case goes away, you know we won't get any money when it does".

FTE's (full time employees) positions increased, more prisons were built, new programs were initiated, new studies implemented, many, many trips were taken by folks to "observe how other agencies conducted their business". ALL AT THE EXPENSE OF TAXPAYERS!

Texas can get it right if the Ledge focused on the problem AND selected qualified staff to correct the problems.

If the Feds get involved again you can expect more killings and assaults; remember TDC had more murders in one year at the height of the Feds overseeing the prisons then they had before the feds arrived (and the leadership was strong and experienced then).

Building Tenders are gone, however the staff shortage indicates correctional staff are not supervising the wards of the state.

Some "Guards" cannot physically defend themselves let alone "Bullying" anyone else. I am amazed that a person with a 63 inch waist and is 5 feet 3 nches in height can "graduate" from correctional officer training. This is the same person that cannot walk from the main gate to the admin building without grabbing the flagpole to suck in some air to continue the journey.

Corruption was gone? No Ma'am; read the papers; Exec Director and several Directors bit the dust during that time frame.

Anonymous said...

Since the 1070s when residential mental health facilities began to close and funding was not provided to community menthl health centers, individuals with high mental health needs have been shuttled to the correctional system. In Texas, TYC is asked to provide mental health services for youthful offenders. TYC operates a small "hospital" facility for severely acute mentally ill youth. Until we make it possible for our communities to provide needed mental health services, we will continue to have people in the correctional system who do not receive the help they so desperately need.

Anonymous said...

golly, I didn't mean to go back that far in history... since the 1970s is what I meant.