Tuesday, April 10, 2007

TYC Fixes Would Close 3 Units

The Texas House Corrections Committe has an enormous agenda up for Wednesday with mostly positive legislation on it (with one or two exceptions). The agenda is so big I'm going to break it up into chunks instead of try to do it all at once. Those interested should go through the whole thing, as I don't have time now to do more than hit the high (and low) lights.

For starters, two pieces of legislation aimed at reforming the Texas Youth Commission would constitute radical changes in how the agency is run. HB 2512 by Dutton would have TYC transfer to TDJC all facilities with capacity greater than 100 - I'm not sure but I think that's all of them except the halfway houses. In addition it would place a capacity cap on TYC (for institutional and contract units and halfway houses combined) at 3,000 kids, comprised thusly:
The 3,000 beds would be comprised of 218 in halfway houses, 496 in contracted capacity, 1,518 in secure community-based contract programs, and 768 in state-operated leased space (8 facilities at 96 beds each). The leased facilities would be located in or near counties with a population of 600,000 (Harris, Dallas, Tarrant, Bexar, Travis, El Paso, Hidalgo, and Collin), causing the assessment function to be decentralized and a need for more FTEs and funds for transportation. Additional contract specialists and quality assurance staff would be required. Education would be provided at each facility by the local school districts.
Currently the agency supervises around 4,700 youth. Obviously TYC conservator Jay Kimbrough has already begun the process of reducing the number of TYC inmates, but Dutton's bill would put him on a more aggressive track than at present and likely require additional funding for community based alternatives for released kids.

Another bill, HB 2807 by Madden, addresses the mechanics of reducing TYC's population. Among other things it would "restrict juvenile courts from committing youth to the Youth Commission for a misdemeanor crime, or for violation of misdemeanor probation, and requires any youth committed to TYC for a misdemeanor prior to the enactment of the bill to be released not later than his 19th birthday." Felons 19 and older would be transferred to TDCJ. Thanks to the reduction in population from those and other changes, according to the bill's fiscal note,
The impact of the population reduction would result in the closure of three TYC facilities (Marlin Assessment and Orientation Unit, John Shero State Juvenile Correctional Facility, and Victory Field Correctional Academy), and a reduction in contracted capacity after the first two years.
Those two bills by themselves could be enough to take up a full day's committee work, but the chairman has tacked on a long list of other significant legislation to the agenda as well, at least which I'll take up soon enough.

16 comments:

  1. Hate to say this but someone, PO's, judges, someone, put the brakes on the massive releases taking place at TYC in the form of an e-mail from Austin that states all facilities shall go back to their regular release policies. All this means is the 500 youth releases or whatever number that has been thrown out there will not materialize based upon someone seeing the light at the end of the tunnel.

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  2. If you don't mind, please forward that email, when you can. best,

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  3. You would think Madden would know - at least by now - that most of these guys can't be transferred to TDCJ at 19 because they haven't actually been CONVICTED of anything. Anybody remember juvenile court is different? Maybe the bill should focus instead on actually using the determinate sentence mechanism already available.

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  4. You're going to love this. We are listed as one of the facilities for closing in HB2807 and have seen our facility (VFCA) listed before. We're stressed to the limit because none of us know if we're going to have a job or for how long and we get this email.

    "Reminder, the stress debriefing schedule is below. The counselor will be here tomorrow at 2 p.m."

    Now doesn't that sound great. Possibly some help for all this stress. But wait, all the teachers have their prep periods from 12:50-1:35 and will have students during the time of the debriefing with no possible way to attend because there aren't enough people to cover more than maybe 2 classes. I wonder why someone didn't schedule the debriefing for that time slot. Lucky for us, our "Educator of the Year" stuck out his neck for us once again and finally convinced the administration to cancel classes at 1:55 so we (and the JCO's that might have coverage) will be able to get some much needed help (we hope). It seems that OUR biggest problems are the way administration from the top down treat the employees. We have no problem cutting classes short for some totally unorganized "drill" of some sort or to attend another worthless meeting to have policies read to us and to sign off on, but something that might help the employee.....not without a fight. I hope when they are done with all the student problems, someone begins to look into the way employees of this agency are treated. And they wonder why TYC has such a staff turnover rate. With the understaffing and the mistreatment, it's no wonder people leave. Staff is totally bullied and taken advantage of and the "One-Team" group stick together like nothing I've ever seen.

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  5. They need to look at all the HR and it starts in Austin. Who is running that camp?

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  6. ----Original Message-----
    From: Marie Murdoch
    Sent: Tue 4/10/2007 1:42 PM

    Subject: Release Procedures

    In discussion with Don Brantley you are to go back to utilizing regular release procedures regarding release of youth regardless of what policy or directive they may qualify under. This would include the 10 day notification, a complete transition ICP, and conditions of parole completed by the parole officer. This only applies to the youth that you have not already faxed the notification, set their release date, etc. If you have any questions please let me know. Thank you.

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  7. That just sounds like they are through with the mass release of the ones they want out and want things to go back to the normal procedures now. I didn't see anything about judges saying to stop.

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  8. I'm curious. If Owens and all these TDCJ investigators are now running TYC, who's running and keeping TDCJ in line now?

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  9. Well, it had to happen. The good folks at TYC, or at least VFCA, have finally found some way to scramble text on the Grits For Breakfast Blogs that have to do with TYC. It takes some doing, but we can still get to the website if we type in the address directly (probably won't be able to once they read this)but things dealing with TYC are being scrambled. However, the people on the other server who happen to be secretaries/diagnosticians/administrators can still get in and see what they need to see. It MUST be some sort of a computer glitch because we've been told by our assistant principal that the computer technician knew nothing about it. Of course everyone from Austin down to our local administrators are telling us that VFCA isn't on any closing lists that they are aware of and that it was a clerical error. The assistant principal came around today and read an email from Dr. Brantley that informed us that the bill said nothing about closing any facility including VFCA. We're also being told that nobody up to and including Dr. Nance knows anything about what's going on. Does anybody actually believe any of that?

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  10. It's true the bill does not name any facilities for closing specifically - but the fiscal note prepared by the Legislative Budget Board, quoted in the above blog post, DID name three facilities that would be closed as a result, and listed TYC as its source, for what it's worth.

    If it's a true clerical error, I apologize for mentioning it prematurely. But saying the bill doesn't include the language is disingenuous. The accompanying documentation said precisely that.

    Let me know what's up with the blog blockages. best,

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  11. Weren't the hearings today? Was there no discussion of the stuff Grits posted on the legislative agenda? I'm confused. I thought that stuff was supposed to be talked about today.

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  12. yeah, the hearing was today, but they just got through a few bills then went to the main session, and it's STILL going on!! They're supposed to reconvene afterward, but who knows how much they'll get to.

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  13. Our source tells us that it was postponed until Monday.

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  14. It wasn't postponed, the lege approved all the proposals. Now it's headed for the Senate. See the Dallas Morning News and AAS.

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  15. No, the Statesman coverage was on SB 103 by Hinojosa getting passed by the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. See prior Grits coverage here and here. The bills discussed in House Corrections were left pending and could be voted on as early as next week.

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  16. The bill that passed yesterday out of Senate Criminal Justice was SB 103, by Sen. Chuy Hinojosa.

    HB 2807 by Rep. Madden was pulled down from yesterday's agenda and will be heard on Monday.

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