Texas Ranger is new TJJD Ombudsman

There was an Ombudsman named Unruh

Who reported on bad things that staff do.

Newspapers reported

Her data exported

And so Debbie Unruh is now through.

Governor Abbott replaced TJJD Ombudsman Debbie Unruh with a retired Texas Ranger with no relevant experience, whatsoever. Reported the Houston Chronicle, "the incoming ombudsman is a former special ops commander with experience in special weapons and tactics, bomb squad, reconnaissance, crisis negotiations and border security." That background should really help when coaxing stories out of abused kids in youth lockups.

Meanwhile, Grits remains concerned about the message sent when the person who exposed many of the problems driving change at the agency is targeted for removal. I hope this new guy will do a good job, but the optics sure are bad. And if all of a sudden his reports show that problems at the agency have cleared up, will those findings be accepted as credible, or will the shoot-the-messenger circumstances surrounding his predecessor's departure make even good news something questionable? Time will tell. 

Putting a cop in the job instead of someone who's worked with kids - when the main job requirement is traveling around the state listening to kids - may work out despite the bad optics. I hope so. Certainly, I have no reason to believe the new Ombudsman is anything but a good man with the best intentions, despite the mismatched skill set. But coupled with moving troubled kids into TDCJ and uninformed comments by the new ED about raise-the-age proposals, Governor Abbott's change program still seems to this observer like it's off to a rocky start.

RELATED: A couple of editorials out this week speak to the small-government strategy that, in this writer's opinion, the Governor should adopt, following Scott Walker's lead in Wisconsin, instead of doubling down on large youth prison facilities.

• Austin Statesman: "Why Texas should close its last five juvenile lockup sites"
• Washington Post: "Time to close all youth prisons"

TJJD Ombudsman Firing: Shooting the Messenger

When one reads the press accounts which broke the recent scandals at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department or talk to the reporters who covered it, one thing becomes clear: Much of what we know would have remained a secret if it weren't for the work of Debbie Unruh and her staff at the Ombudsman's office.

So naturally, Gov. Abbott has fired her, the Houston Chronicle reported. The chair of TJJD's board is also gone, and the executive director of the agency had already been replaced by the head of Gov. Abbott's Criminal Justice Division (which is in charge of dispensing mostly federal grant money). See also coverage from the Texas Tribune.

Incidentally, the new board chair, Wes Ritchey, comes from the same job Grits' paternal grandfather had for 29 years: County Judge of Dallam County.

State Sen. John Whitmire defended the changes, declaring, "Surely they can't say that the status quo was working well." To which Grits would reply, "No, it's not, but the only way we know that is because of the good work of the Ombudsman who's now being fired."

I get firing the ED and the board chair, even if I wasn't happy with the subsequent ED's initial missteps. But firing the Ombudsman is a different breed of cat. Hard to see that as anything but shooting the messenger, which breeds skepticism about whether the Governor would rather solve the problem or cover it up.

Rather than embracing modern best practices on juvenile justice like Gov. Scott Walker in Wisconsin, Gov. Abbott is doubling down on failed big-government solutions from the past and shutting down voices that exposed its shortcomings. That's a discouraging start to what will surely be a long and painful process.

If Unruh's office had never documented and exposed some of these problems, they would continue to have been swept under the rug. Same goes for problems at county detention centers.

My own takeaway on this remains the same as when the latest scandal first broke: "The mechanisms the Legislature created [in 2007] to identify, prosecute and punish sexual misconduct by staff actually appear to have worked. But the corrections culture that produces these illicit relationships at TJJD and TDCJ continues to afford opportunities for predatory behavior." The Ombudsman's office is part of what worked in this case: It's the management and ultimately decision makers and budget writers in the Legislature who decided to keep these large facilities in rural areas far away from treatment or mental health resources, then underfund them to the point that, in some cases, staff turnover approaches 40 percent annually.

Will the next Ombudsman be anxious to expose problems at juvenile detention centers knowing that doing so got the last person fired? Not likely.

Unruh wasn't technically a "whistleblower" because her JOB was to expose this stuff. She wasn't doing it against the interests of the agency, it was part of her job description and the Ombudsman's explicit mission.

But the circumstance is essentially similar to firing a whistleblower: She's being punished after exposing problems everyone agrees shouldn't have been going on. Indeed, given that most of the changes at TJJD so far are non-responsive to the details of the recently reported scandals, punishing her seems to be prioritized over fixing the problems.

RELATED: "Shifting youth to adult prisons puts Texas on the wrong side of history."

Settlement of Sandra Bland lawsuit an important step in the right direction, but no panacea for ensuring safe jail conditions

Today's news about the $1.9 million settlement of the lawsuit filed by Sandra Bland's family against the Waller County Jail and the Texas Department of Public Safety surely comes as a welcome development for many supporters and observers around the country.  As reported by Johnathan Silver in the Texas Tribune, the terms of the settlement include the following:

•  "Waller County will pay the family $1.8 million.  The Texas Department of Public Safety will pay the family $100,000."
• "To prevent future document falsifications, Waller County jail will use automated electronic sensors to ensure accurate and timely cell checks."
• "From here forward, Waller County jail will now provide an on-duty nurse or EMT for all shifts."
• "The Waller County Judge pledges to actively seek passage of state legislation providing for more funding for jail intake, booking, screening training and other jail support like telemedicine access for Texas county jails AND HE SUPPORTS HAVING ANY RESULTING LEGISLATION NAMED IN SANDRA BLAND'S HONOR!" [emphasis in original]
• "The Waller County Sheriff's Office shall provide additional jailer training (including ongoing continuing education) on booking and intake screening."

The financial settlement may strike some as too high and others as too low, but in the world of death in jail custody lawsuits, it is a very solid settlement and in the neighborhood of some other very high-profile cases with which this writer is familiar.  Of greater interest for purposes of this post, though, are the non-financial parts of the settlement.

I was pleased to see that the settlement includes efforts to address problems in the intake screening process, the need for additional staff training, concerns about medical care, and problems with falsification of records about staff rounds in the jail.  These are all steps in the right direction and can definitely help shift the culture in the jail towards one that is more responsive to the needs of inmates and to compliance with constitutional standards of care.

But some caution is also necessary:  none of these settlement terms will guarantee inmate safety, and more details and steps are necessary.

Take, for example, the use of electronic sensors to "ensure" that staff conduct their rounds in a timely fashion.  There is always a danger in over-reliance on technology.  Yes, the electronic wands can be helpful, but the technology can also mask poor performance or other operational problems in the jail.  Staff have been known to quickly dash through the cellblocks touching wands to sensors to ensure that a record exists of their rounds, but they haven't necessarily taken the time to carefully observe the inmates or engage with them--even though observation and engagement (not sensor-touching) is the objective of the rounds.  We need to ask questions about WHY records get falsified or observations aren't conducted properly.  Are there staffing shortages that limit officers' ability to leave their posts to make rounds?  Is there a culture at the jail that does not hold staff accountable when they don't follow procedures?

Also, while it is good news that Waller County will be bringing in an on-duty nurse for all shifts, there is no indication about what type of nurse it must be.  Too many jails rely on LVNs, who are not authorized to handle certain medical tasks.   A California jail recently settled a lawsuit for $8.3 million in a wrongful death case that involved private correctional health provider Corizon's improper use of an LVN to do jail intake medical assessments.

Also, the Waller County Jail has had other recently reported serious problems in the delivery of medical care with disastrous results, despite the involvement of a nurse at the Jail.

The training provisions in the Bland settlement are important, but it would be good to clarify what that training will consist of, how many hours of training will be offered, and who will conduct it.

As the settlement suggests, there will be a critical role for the Legislature on these jail safety issues next session.  The Legislature can do a great service for county jails around the state--especially small and medium-sized jails--by providing resources for improved intake procedures, staff training, and access to telemedicine.  But just as critical, the Legislature needs to ensure the availability of mental health services (including detoxification centers) in local communities so that arrested individuals with mental health issues and those who are heavily intoxicated or high on drugs can be diverted to these more appropriate settings.  Legislators also need to support the creation and training of Crisis Intervention Teams in various law enforcement departments to help de-escalate situations that could lead to violent confrontations.

Beyond all this, it is essential to improve external oversight of Texas's county jails.  The Texas Commission on Jail Standards, which regulates the jails' compliance with certain minimum standards, needs more resources to ensure its ability to conduct regular inspections of each jail and to provide jails with technical assistance.

And Texas also needs to create a form of independent oversight that allows for assessment of inmate complaints about their safety and treatment, since the Commission on Jail Standards was never designed to fulfill that function.  For example, inmate complaints about poor medical care, mental health care, brutality, and sexual assault are well outside the scope of the Commission's mandate.  Just as Texas created an Independent Ombudsman to ensure the safety of incarcerated youth in Texas in the wake of the 2007 TYC scandal, the creation of such an Ombudsman function for the state's jails would be a wise move.  In fact, rather than creating a new entity, it would be easy enough to expand the current Ombudsman's role to include oversight of adult jails.      

The bottom line is that the settlement of the Sandra Bland case is an important step in the right direction, but no one should mistake this development for a solution to safety problems in the jail.  The operational issues that led to Sandra Bland's death and to other inmates' medical problems will require ongoing scrutiny from external oversight bodies, more resources from state and local officials, and careful monitoring by jail managers.