 "Photo: Stephen Durda")
Members of a task force convened to evaluate the flailing Texas Youth Commission's correctional facilities said on Monday that the organization must implement further reforms to properly rehabilitate juvenile delinquents.
Despite lauded efforts to fix the scandal-plagued commission, grim conditions continue to be reported in state-run facilities.
In an October hearing, the commission's independent ombudsman Will Harrell recommended the state close down its Victory Field facility in North Texas, citing deplorable conditions and graffiti-covered walls. The state had shut down a facility in Coke County a few weeks earlier for similar reasons.
Lawmakers also balked at an August hearing about commission officials' decision to allow guards to use pepper spray instead of physical force in restraining disobedient youth.
A local activist joined three task force members in the Texas Union's Eastwoods Room on Monday for a discussion on how the commission can improve its dealings with youth offenders.
Task force chairman David Springer, UT associate dean for academic affairs and social work
professor, said the group was created after recent abuse scandals to develop the ideal treatment and health care system at commission facilities, but widened its aim to include forming the ideal juvenile justice system in Texas. It consisted of about two dozen national and local experts in juvenile justice, education, probation and parole, Springer said.
"I would like to see a greater priority placed on treatment and education over punitive measures that are being used, such as pepper spray," Springer said. "There are some important changes that have been made at TYC, but I think more remains to be done."
It costs the state nearly $60,000 to incarcerate one child per year, said Juan Sanchez, task force member and president of the Southwest Key Program.
Sanchez said that 67 percent of those incarcerated in Texas juvenile correctional facilities are nonviolent offenders. The panel suggested that those who do not pose a risk to themselves or others should be treated through community involvement rather than a trip to a lock-up facility.
About 55 percent of those in Texas youth correctional centers will return, Sanchez said.
Springer said that the facility located in Edinburg can hold 30 youths in solitary confinement at one time, six times more than in the entire state of Missouri. He said the commission should focus on rehabilitation over
confinement.
The task force will present its September report to the Human Rights Commission at Austin City Hall on Monday. The group hosted a two-day summit in the Texas Union last May to hash out ideas and generate the basis for the report.
Some students in attendance said they found the panel
informational.
"I thought it was a really good example of the academic community making concrete policy recommendations, which is really the interface between scholars and policymakers," said public affairs graduate student Laura Martin.
Martin said she disapproves of the current state of youth correctional facilities in Texas.
"I think it's pretty appalling," Martin said. "It is really frightening to me to think that this is how citizens of this country and children and young people in our community are treated. I think it's admirable that there are efforts being made to reform the system, and I think it is important that we need to continue advocacy."
Springer said he hopes that state leaders take a serious look at the report and implement the recommendations that they deem
feasible.
"I think there are a lot of dedicated staff at TYC on the front lines trying to provide treatment, trying to educate the youth, but they are doing so in a system that is understaffed and underfunded," Springer said. "There needs to be commitment by the public and by state leaders to truly reform the system if we want our communities to be safer and our youth to be truly rehabilitated. They need treatment, they need education and they need good health care."
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