Still, an op ed yesterday in the Austin Statesman by former TDCJ monitor and LBJ school academic Michele Deitch and former TDCJ chief Gary Johnson gave it the ol' college try, criticizing the application of adult prison techniques to juvenile offenders and the newspaper's "caricatured" portrayal of the issue. "Readers have been presented with stark contrasts between a caricatured mollycoddling philosophy that supposedly characterizes the former Texas Youth Commission facilities, and the severe discipline, harsh physical conditions and solitary confinement options for juveniles that are endemic in the adult prison system," they wrote. The writers emphasized that maintaining discipline is critical to the agency's mission, but declared that:
discipline does not mean — and should not mean in the juvenile context — use of physical force or brutality, use of pepper spray, use of long-term solitary confinement or denial of programming. Not only are such measures banned under the terms of federal court orders that govern the state's juvenile justice agency, they are counterproductive strategies that worsen outcomes for the youths and put us all at risk when they are ultimately released from confinement.I'm glad they mentioned the federal court orders; Grits has wondered if there's been so much turnover at the agency, remaining officials just forgot about them. The op-ed writers describe how juvenile offenders are treated in TDCJ, noting that "administrators and staffers there will be the first to say that these youths do not belong in adult facilities." And they adumbrated national research and standards critical of using adult prison facilities and methods with juvenile offenders:
National research shows that juveniles who are housed in adult prisons have vastly higher rates of suicide, mental illness, and sexual and physical assaults than their counterparts in juvenile facilities. They also have much worse outcomes, despite the (surprising) similarities in demographics and criminal offense history. One nationally reported study found that juveniles who spend at least a year in adult prisons and jails have a 100 percent greater risk of violent recidivism than those in juvenile facilities.Finally, the authors point out that some of TJJD/TYC's programming - particularly their capital offenders program and their sex-offender regimen, "are far more successful in working with violent youths than any program the adult corrections system has to offer," encouraging lawmakers not to "throw the baby out with the bathwater."
A few years ago, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention appointed a task force to evaluate all available research on this subject. The task force concluded that the evidence is overwhelming that transferring youths to the adult system is counterproductive as a strategy for controlling or preventing violence; it actually makes youths worse. The CDC called on policymakers to immediately reverse policies that allow youths to be placed in the adult criminal justice system.
For these reasons and others, every major professional corrections organization — including the American Correctional Association, the American Bar Association, the National Commission on Correctional Health Care and the Association of Juvenile Correctional Administrators — disapproves of the notion of keeping juveniles in adult prisons and jails.
See related, recent Grits posts:
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22 comments:
"I'm glad they mentioned the federal court orders; Grits has wondered if there's been so much turnover at the agency, remaining officials just forgot about them."
The remaining officials are long time TYC folks and know the history all too well. A huge problem with the new agency is that almost all positions of leadership have been filled with TYC folks--- and TJPC staff have been demoted or let go. A TYC take over--- is that what the Lege had in mind with this merger?
Flash! We have juveniles going directly into adult correctional facilities through the adult courts. A court can certify a juvenile as an adult and order that kid into any adult probation community corrections facility (not to mention into a TDCJ unit). If we send them to prison, we're sending them to spend 24/7 with robbers, drug dealers, rapists, and murderers for several years and then we expect them to come out as better people. Whose fantasyland does that idea come from? That kid has to become as hard and mean as possible just to survive. Yes, there are some very dangerous and damaged kids out there, but 17 years of age is awfully early just to give up on someone and throw them into the horror show of adult prison life.
What a sad joke! The Capital and Sex Offenders programs at Giddings USED to be viable programs, but staff, Admin, and the youth basicly gave up on them a LONG time ago.
Someone needs to go check the records, as such, if there ARE any, in regards to when/how long any actual programming is taking place. I don't know who's fooling who but the programs are broken, and not doing the youth any good.
When it comes to pepper spray, it beats tasers, IMHO, and when you got a kid that won't get down off a perch atop a washing machine for 12 hours or more, and can't risk trying to drag him down, pepper spray is pretty effective. There's lots of other situations that occur at Giddings where spraying kids would have worked, and worked WELL... if only Admin had made the choice to employ it.
TJJD youth consider only THEIR "rights"... and not of their victims, peers, or staff. If they were to forced to consider the rights of OTHERS -- for a change -- we ALL would be better off. Locking them up and treating them like adults isn't punishment as much as reality check for what they'll need to know and how they'll need to act once they leave the youth institution.
As long as we tiptoe around the concepts of discipline, punishment, and rehabilitation -- we're going to have problems with these young felons.
Grits is there any way you can prevent that felon Sheldon from posting. We don’t need him pointing out any self evident truisms about TYC and how its run by a bunch of signifying monkeys.
10:41, mind your own business and stay on topic. Also, be careful asking for me to start censoring commenters on juvie strings. Believe me, if I started doing that, it wouldn't stop with Sheldon by a longshot.
10:25, the reason your spray-first approach isn't used isn't because "Admin ... made the choice" but because when it was tried in 2007 TYC was sued and lost. It's fine to pretend among your friends that all would be better if you called the shots, but in the real world these issues are not new, and laws and court rulings constrain such tactics more than admin decisions.
The plain fact is that TYC/TJJD had a great program that worked well before Townsend and her regime. Texas let the bleeding heart liberals into the house and suddenly we have a Cub-scout day camp for juvenile felons! They get games, cake, ice cream, and cookies. They end up with no consequences for bad behavior and security and anything we used to use that worked were tossed out with last weeks old meatloaf! In a nutshell the youth need discipline, Regimen, and structure along with concrete consequences. Right now you cant get them to go to bed at Giddings!
Former TJJD... this has nothing to do with liberals or conservatives. Resocialization was thrown out by the Pope... and CoNextions was made up on the run. Townsend and James are not capable of manageing this.
Your political bias offers no credible critique or solution. You are just wrong!
Conextions was written and designed by Rebecca Thomas and she touted this has the best program TYC has ever had. And currently she is a Director for TJJD, do you really believe this agency can move forward with leadership like this. As of today she is distancing herself from this but all you have to do is look at the past 4 years and speak with everyone on any campus.
You must ask yourself this question, if she knew it was a terrible program but continued to peddle it then she is a puppet.
If she believed it was a great program and continued to peddle it, you can come to your own conclusion.
Signified monkeys, that’s a good one 10:41 and describes my unit to the T. I’m not a fan of Sheldon any more than the rest of you. He makes some valid points that make some people made. He keeps talking about the old timers from Gatesville how they said that hiring blacks over whites would be the death of the agency. I figured he was just race baiting like old people do. I wondered how those people back then know this. But I heard someone say Gatesville was segregated. They had blacks on one side of the road and whites on the other. The more I thought about it the more I figured the old timers knew how blacks run a all black unit. I did more research and sure enough the black unit was pretty bad. I thing the thing they had we don’t was the white folks keeping them out of trouble. I know that was a long time ago but man peoples cultures don’t change much especially when government and the media encourage them not to. Somebody needs to do something to get these kids under control. I got one more year and I graduate then I’m out of here.
Heres the main problem at TJJD. All the administration staff are puppets. I work in a halfway house. We have all the same problems that a state school has (drugs, assaults, escapes,intimiadation of other youth and STAFF). When it is reported to the superintendent or assistant superintendent nothing happens. I have caught youth with drugs IN THEIR HANDS written the incident report and then waited. NOTHING! when you aske why this youth was not disiplined the administration gets mad at you. How many youth are we going to allow to escape into the community before someone in Austin steps up. I have never been surrounded by a bigger group of cowards in my life. I have worked with kids for the past twenty years (several as a preschool teacher) and I have never seen a place with NO DISIPLINE LIKE TJJD. Sure Ms. Townsend is gone and that was the right move. But give us staff some direction, let us know what is happening, tell us what needs to be done because there is no directions comming from our superintendent she just walks around here like everything is fine. This is crazy, needs to change quickly or someone will get hurt. Again
when we have a major incident in a halfway house (youth fighting, escaping, using drugs, medical) we have to call our superintendent to find out what she wants us to do. As a trained staff member I have to call the superintendent or assistant superintendent who is off duty before I can respond to a situation. THATS CRAZY!. Then the superintendent has to call her supervisor. What TJJD is trying to do is hide the major incidents that are occuring in the halfway house by not calling the police. TJJD is more concerned about how they look to the public then keeping the public safe. We have had sex offenders escape and be running the streets but no one is alerted.There is an ele. school directly across the street from where we are. As long as TJJD has this COVER ATTITUDE (which has been several years now) nothing will change, and TJJD will continue to make the news for all the wrong reasons
COVER UP ATTITUDE
thanks
TYC has to cover for the incompetence of its minority employees who call themselves running things because so many times wht they do is criminal.
TJJD's problems are due to multiple issues, not JUST "the incompetent minority employees" (which in the case at Giddings, numbers-wise, is White folks), "CoNextions" (which is bad as it is might work if everyone was on the same page with it) or the sleazy and illegal "coverup attitude".
The MAIN problem is the System doesn't treat the youth like they will have to grow up someday. They are given a Peter Pan Syndrome view of life while at the youth lockups, most exemplified by the "no consequences for behavior" standard that seems to have taken hold. Got drugs? No consequence. Expose yourself to staff? No consequence. Fight? Ditto.
How is it that a day after they turn 18 years old that they should be expected to THEN understand that what you do really does have consequences, no matter if you are in The Free or in adult prison? How can we expect to help these youth grow up without discipline?
Townsend wrecked the place with her hug-a-thug mentaility. I am clueless as to why James Smith is still there.
There is a reason they are in TJDD. First of all, the qualifier is they are all convicted FELONS. After that domino, the majority have failed to live up to the terms of probation. While on probation, they have probably had a chance at home on regular and ISP probation. Then there is a good chance they were placed outside their home at least in one placement. All of these alternatives were tried to give that child an opportunity to live within the social norms of society. Each step taken by the process in the juvenile justice system provides more structure and less freedom, until a Judge says enough.
So, TJJD gets a kid whose behavior has continually dictated that his need is for MORE structure than is offered outside their walls and less freedom. Oh...and multiply that by hundreds of kids with all different kinds of behavioral problems that cannot be addressed in a normal setting. And just because they're committed to TJJD doesn't mean the inappropriate behaviors stop. At some point the difficult decisions have to be made for these kids at TJJD, if you are going to make a difference with the kids that are there, that can actually benefit from the programs and staff, within a more structured and confining environment.
btw...you grand standers with all your glorious wisdom in addressing this issue should take a weeks vacation and actually work a 40 hr week there and then come back and educate the flock.
9:39 am
James Smith is still here because he is a kiss ass. There is always room for those at the top. He contributed to Ms. Townsend being let go. Mr. Smith should have been fired for comming up with that stupid quiet room or the no strip search rules
Thats rigt 902 all those damn white folks just need to shut the hell up because they racest
This is my first post here, been reading for months now! Some of you are right on the money, and some are just titty babies! Some of y'all need to just shut up and do your job, and some need to work a dorm fool! I'm fixing to go work a dorm, and a rough one at that! I've worked all the dorms at my facility and you have decent kids and staff in some, and others it's totally opposite! It's aggravating at times, and enjoyable at times! As for all the racist comments, yes, alot of that is truthful, but I have respect from all races, both youth and staff! If you conduct yourself properly and respectful, instead of going in there with a sour attitude right of the bat; maybe your shift will run smoother! The problem is if your not a peoples person, then you might ought to find something else! It's essential! Well I'm gonna go get some more bruised ribs and get cussed out, and do my job without whining! Staff should set the standard, not feed into racism and ignorance! Y'all sound needy, like the youth; always complaining and wanting something you can't change right now! It's good to vent, but man up! And for you peeps that haven't worked a dorm...I don't even bother to read yalls posts! Cuz ya just don't know...!! By the way, the most racist people in this world are usually the most ignorant! My Grandaddy taught me that, and He was right on tha money!
Another opinion piece in the NY times that looks at the costs of long term isolation: higher recidivism, mental health, higher suicide rate.
Anthony Graves testimony about isolation is highlighted.
http://www.nytimes.com/2012/06/21/opinion/the-abuse-of-solitary-confinement.html?_r=2&ref=opinion
Welcome, 12:13, good comment! Thanks for a wise and reasoned response.
8:05, thanks, I hadn't seen that.
It amazes me to see how many people who never stepped foot into a correctional facility can give so much input on a topic they no so little about. People on the outside looking in want to baby these kids who already committed some of the worst of crimes. How can you rehabilitate someone who rapes or murders the grandmother,mother,etc. You can try to council him and all they due is manipulate the system and trick you into believing they're gonna do right and get released and what do they do?? THE SAME THING that got them there.
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