Legislative committee reports presaged TYC woes

Before Nate Blakeslee and the Texas Observer broke the story of unprosecuted allegations of sexual abuse at a West Texas youth prison, House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden was already demanding the agency enact significant reforms, a fact for which he deserves much credit. In an era filled with complacent lawmakers, he and his committee were taking responsibility for Texas Youth Commission's shortcomings well before the most recent revelations made the front page of the nation's newspapers.

In his interview with Capitol Annex last night, Chairman Madden referenced the House Corrections Committee's Interim Report discussion of TYC (pp. 108-131), published before the allegations at Pyote became public, so I went back and took a look.

Reviewing it again, I ran across a mention on page 109 that Madden had asked then-executive director Dwight Harris in March 2006 to solicit "technical assistance" from the Department of Justice. It'd be interesting to know what that technical assistance constisted of and what were the results, but it speaks well that Chairman Madden was on top of things enough a year ago to understand there were significant problems and seek outside help.

The Corrections Committee heard 12 hours of testimony about TYC on March 22, 2006, according to the report, much of which was from employees, some of whom had been injured by incarcerated youth and said they were not supported in their disciplinary responses by the TYC administration. (Go here for those interim committee webcasts.) The following month the committee visited the TYC facilities in Brownwood and San Saba, both of which have played prominent roles in recent TYC coverage.

One managerial concern as the Pyote story has unfolded is that all the bad publicity will affect TYC's ability to recruit and retain guards at a time when the agency needs to nearly double the number of JCOs or radically restructure itself to manage kids differently.

Today, entry level JCO positions are really crappy jobs, to be frank, especially without significant increases in staffing to make them safe and the kids more secure. Think about it: 24 GOOD kids is a lot for a teacher to handle; a 24-1 guard to TYC inmate ratio is a recipe for disaster. That's got to be the worst babysitting job on the planet, and it pretty much pays like it. Entry level JCOs make $1,816 per month, according to the interim report (see the pay scales on p. 128). Not surprisingly, given the low pay and onerous work environment, 64% of TYC terminations are for attendance, mostly for job abandonment - people just stop showing up for work and are never heard from again.

According to the House Corrections Committee interim report, relying on an email account by TYC staff, at some TYC facilities annual staff turnover has been as high as 70%. The committee recommended a variety of staff retention proposals that may not be enough now that the agency has received such bad publicity.

I mention all this to make several points:

First, if you or someone you know don't mind small town living and a small-town paycheck, head to your nearest TYC facility and apply for a job. They're almost certainly hiring, and they need good people who care.

Second, TYC won't be safe for students or JCOs until staff-student ratios are cut in half, and employment is stabilized so that experienced officers are retained. That either requires a major investment in the current failed system or a complete restructuring - one that is needed, but whose outcome is uncertain. That might include disbanding TYC units modeled after (or converted from) adult prisons and moving to smaller facilities located near urban areas where the kids come from. But who knows how quickly that can happen? There are few good options here.

And finally, as we look back on the unfolding TYC scandal and reporters parse out who knew what when, who acted, and who covered up, it's worth recognizing that Chairman Jerry Madden and the House Corrections Committee a year ago saw TYC's serious managerial shortcomings, expressed concern that these failings contribute to abuse of students and lapses in JCO safety, and demanded that the agency seek outside assistance - essentially an admission that the existing administration wasn't up to the job on its own.

There may be a few gotchas left in the TYC scandals as we discover the full story over time. But it's also good to know that this committee along with Chairman John Whitmire's Senate Criminal Justice Committee, whose own interim report studied and documented skyrocketing abuse rates at TYC, had already figured out that TYC had big problems and needed significant reform. Now we'll see if these folks can use the short-term political capital created by these latest revelations to make needed improvements at TYC agencywide.