Nedelkoff will move quickly to find permanent TYC ED

Texas Youth Commission conservator Richard Nedelkoff plans to hire a permanent executive director soon, he says, and it sounds like it won't be current acting E.D. Dimitria Pope. Wrote Nedelkoff in a letter to employees this afternoon:

I have begun the process of posting a permanent executive director position. While there will be a number of people I would like to consider, I hope to move swiftly on the identification and selection of this person.

That doesn't sound to me like the current E.D. is a prime candidate for the permanent spot. Making me even more hopeful, Nedelkoff looked to outside sources, not within Texas' corrections bureaucracy, for juvenile justice experts to assist him in the short term. He wrote in the same email that he had:

contacted three people who will be "on loan" to us from their current jobs and they will be working on a variety of TYC projects during the next 30 to 60 days in a part-time capacity. I will task them to become involved in various projects, including policy analysis and operational issues that I feel are a priority. These are some people that will be assisting TYC:

Rex Uberman, Assistant Secretary, Florida Department of Juvenile Justice

Mr. Uberman has more than 30 years of experience in juvenile justice, child welfare, substance abuse and mental health services. He has expertise in developing clear public policy and operational procedures and implementing interventions that stabilized high risk operations and reformed failing programs. Mr. Uberman has provided consulting services to the District of Columbia Juvenile Justice Reform, State of New Mexico Juvenile Justice Project, the State of Florida Department of Children and Families, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, and many other state, federal and private entities.

Dianne L. Gadow, Deputy Director of Operations, Arizona Department of Juvenile Corrections

In her current capacity, Ms. Gadow oversees the department's secure schools and community corrections programs. These include youth on parole, medical and mental health programs, classification and assessments, education programs, and partnerships with community resources. Ms. Gadow has a history of successfully establishing major reforms and enhancing educational and mental health components in youth correctional facilities and the community. She is currently the chairperson of the American Correctional Association Juvenile Corrections Committee.

Leticia Pena Martinez, Director of Family Initiatives, Child Support Division, Office of the Attorney General

Ms. Martinez has extensive experience in juvenile justice issues, including creating a new office in the Office of the Attorney General focused on programs and initiatives that strengthen families and promote responsible parenthood. While serving as the Deputy Director/Director of Strategic Planning in the Criminal Justice Division of the Office of the Governor, she led the development and administration of innovative grants and programs that involve juvenile justice and delinquency prevention, criminal justice, law enforcement, victims services and community volunteerism programs.

These are good signs. If the first several high profile appointments had come from the adult prison system like the last round of managers, it would have been very disheartening. Not only that, bringing in his own people makes him less reliant on the adult prison transplants who currently hold most of the management slots, and should help him exert greater control over the agency more quickly.

Just as promising, Nedelkoff identified several key areas for "review" that also make me think he's started off in the right direction:

·The treatment and rehabilitation programming;

·The use of force/pepper spray policy;

·The security placement procedures and behavior modification program;

·The population management and facility utilization;

·The continuous assessment and evaluation of youth during their entire length of stay at TYC; and

·The institutional staffing patterns.

All of these, regular readers know, are areas where TYC administrators over the last year adopted strategies and tactics from the adult prison system to apply inappropriately to youth prisons. I still haven't heard back about the interview with Nedelkoff I requested, but his first few public acts have been cause for cautious optimism.

UPDATE: Jerome Williams replaced by Mike Davis as superintendent at Crockett, reports the Dallas News.