Violence at youth prisons blamed on lax discipline, structural problems ignored

Mike Ward at the Austin Statesman on Sunday offered a worm's-eye view of violence at youth prisons from the perspective of juvenile correctional officers (JCOs), many of whom, as anyone who reads Grits comments knows, blame increased violence on the head of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, Cherie Townsend and lenient security policies on TYC campuses ("Workers trace youth lockup's problems to soft discipline," May 13).

Voicing the views of a dozen employees, Ward pinned the source of current problems to the period "after 2009, with a new management team in place at agency headquarters in Austin, some of the more punitive aspects of life inside the lockups were relaxed." What that ignores, though, is that many of those "punitive aspects" - particularly the first-resort use of pepper spray, which certainly boosted JCO's on-the-ground power over youth - were ended because of successful lawsuits. Moreover, the lawsuits and changes that ended use of many adult corrections practices among juveniles were largely spawned from reporting from people like Mike Ward, for example in a 2007 article voicing extensive criticisms of pepper spray use in juvenile facilities.

Further, the 1984 Morales v. Turman settlement (TYC's version of the Ruiz case) remains binding on TJJD and restricts a variety of the more punitive measures suggested mostly by folks from the adult prison system over the last five years.

In the past, Grits has argued that framing the debate around use of force levels or harsher discipline misstates the problem. If TYC's history is any indication (I haven't followed juvie stuff nearly as closely in the last year or so), the Juvenile Justice Department suffers from absurdly high turnover among frontline staff, who aren't paid very handsomely and must live in places like Giddings or Brownwood, which makes it especially difficult to staff specialized treatment positions. So TJJD isn't getting folks, say, with educational backgrounds in juvenile development, they're essentially competing with Walmart for employees. A report by the Sunset Commission in 2010 found a 25% turnover rate among staff at youth prisons, down from a high of 48% turnover in 2007, but still among the highest of all state agencies.

And while last I heard, TJJD has said it's meeting its 12-1 staffing ratio, the changing demographics of youth prisoners (less dangerous offenders diverted, more dangerous offenders concentrated into fewer units) may mean even that number is too high. Grits asked back in 2007, "Why not make youth prisons safer by staffing them properly? The unspoken answer: Because staff cost money, and by comparison pepper spray is cheap." Because I've had to quit tracking the agency closely, I can't say if that's a causal factor now, but it sure was when the identical complaints were aired in 2007.

Either way, these safety issues are really symptoms masking a more fundamental, underlying disease: A frontline staff neither trained, experienced, nor numerous enough to manage facilities which were designed along adult models rather than for the specific needs of youth.

The best solution would be structural, not just punitive: The Governor's blue-ribbon panel on reforming TYC recommended abolishing larger youth prisons like the one in Giddings in order to end a "punishment culture" that permeated the agency. The complaints aired by Ward IMO amount to revanchist nostalgia from disgruntled adherents to that "punishment culture," not sound advice for how state leaders should operate the system.

The blue ribbon commission recommended shifting away from larger adult-model facilities entirely and opening smaller facilities closer to urban areas so youth can be more closely supervised and have more interaction with their families. But nobody wanted to spend more money on youth corrections, and in fact legislative leaders exerted tremendous pressure to spend less. So rather than shift to smaller facilities as recommended, the Lege paid for a little remodeling and new security cameras, but stuck with the large-facility model. With the same large facilities populated by a more concentrated group of more serious offenders, however, the shortcomings of that approach were only exacerbated.

That decision, far more than any recent disempowerment of JCOs, explains why Texas youth prison problems were never truly fixed: The Legislature sought the best advice from the top minds in the juvenile justice field, got it, then ignored it because it would cost money. Now they wonder why things didn't turn out well and are looking for someone to blame. Cherie Townsend may not be perfect, no one is, but some of her legislative critics should find mirrors if they want to disparage those truly responsible.