Texas lawmakers announced a push this week to eliminate the troubled Texas Youth Commission, which has been rocked by a sexual and physical abuse scandal in the past year.
The commission receives a $250 million annual budget from the state and houses about 2,400 youth offenders - smaller than the enrollment of many Texas high schools. In a program designed to rehabilitate troubled youth, 55 percent of the population will return to lock up, according to statistics released by the Blue Ribbon Task Force. The force was hired by the TYC to make recommendations for improving the commission.
"TYC should be phased out," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Senate Committee on Criminal Justice. "I think it is broken."
Commission spokesman Jim Hurley said he could not comment on the possible closure of the commission. He said the program will work with legislators and provide them with information to make a decision.
"As a state employee, it is not my job to enter a public policy discussion. That is for our legislative leaders to do," Hurley said. "Sen. Whitmire has invested a lot of time and energy into this. I think it is a necessary debate."
Whitmire said 90 percent of the youth incarcerated at the commission come from Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. He said the state should build confined lockdown facilities closer to these urban areas. He said housing offenders closer to home would allow for family contact and for the court system to keep tabs on the kids.
"It just makes sense to keep the kids within the community from which they came," Whitmire said. "The reforms in TYC that the legislature passed last spring called for a 12-to-1 ratio of officer to student. We can't get anywhere near that in the rural areas."
He said remote rural facilities also limit the number of mental health services, drug and alcohol treatment, education and other rehabilitation programs available to youths. Whitmire said that to phase out the commission, legislators must work with the counties to develop a new state agency. Lawmakers could also put the youths under the control of the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission, which oversees county juvenile justice programs.
Whitmire said the funding for the commission would be given to the county programs and would be more cost-effective.
"Let the money follow the kids," Whitmire said. "It would not be an unfunded mandate, which was the concern of some. You help the student, you get a better product and save money."
Hurley said the commission supports the move to urban facilities but could not say why it has not already implemented the changes.
"I know that since I have been here, that certainly has been talked about," he said. "I think it's well-documented that our more remote locations have difficulty attracting the appropriate workforce. I think anyone in juvenile justice will tell you that if you keep kids closer to their home and have more family involvement in the rehabilitation, you're going to be more effective."
Whitmire said it could take a few years to phase out the commission.
"It's not in the near term, but we can start making efforts in that direction by one: Don't spend a lot of money out there repairing old run-down rural facilities," he said. "You save money, because you cut out bureaucracy and overhead in the TYC state office. You don't need a planning department. You don't need a human resources department. You don't need a press agent. You don't need a general counsel. It's just all types of extra government that can be eliminated."
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