From The Texas Newsroom:
The governing board of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department is disputing the accuracy of a report by the U.S. Department of Justice alleging widespread mental, physical and sexual abuse in the state’s youth facilities.
The board’s response has angered criminal justice reform advocates, who allege the state’s dismissiveness is a symptom of a decades-long problem that plagues children incarcerated in state facilities.
On Aug. 1, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division released its assessment of the five juvenile detention facilities in the state and found that “TJJD engaged in a pattern of abuse, deprivation of essential services and disability related discrimination that seriously harms children and undermines their rehabilitation,” said Kristen Clarke, the Assistant Attorney General of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division.
The report detailed how staffers at the agency used excessive physical force, including relying on chemical spray as a first resort in de-escalation. It also stated staffers kept some youths in solitary confinement for longer than necessary and ushered in “a pervasive atmosphere of sexual abuse, grooming, and lack of staff accountability and training at TJJD.”
During an Aug. 9 board meeting – the governing body’s first meeting after the report was unveiled – TJJD Chairman Scott Matthew said that, moving forward, the board’s hope is to “continue to make improvements” and become aligned more closely with advocates.
But he added the report has “done some damage” to the agency and disputed its validity.
“I’m going to tell you – just from my personal experience – I don’t think it’s completely accurate,” he said. “I’ll leave it at that.”
Shandra Carter, executive director of TJJD, acknowledged the public’s frustration and said she “understands where that distress comes from.”
She then leaned into the staffing levels within the agency when the DOJ’s investigation began in October 2021.
“I think it’s important to note that, when the site visits began, we were in the worst staffing crisis of TJJD and [Texas Youth Commission] history,” Carter said. “We had facilities at double their population of what we could safely manage, and we had youth on the wait list to be transferred to TJJD from our county partners.”
Carter praised employees that stuck with the agency through staffing shortages and the “endless scrutiny and criticism.” But she also conceded that some agency employees have stained TJJD’s reputation.
“We do have people make terrible choices and hurt youth. And then, that just gets sort of generalized to all our people,” she said. “It is a very difficult job when people are assuming that you’re nefarious.”
During the board meeting’s public comment period – where speakers were limited to two minutes – Jennifer Toon, Project Director of the criminal justice advocacy group Lioness Justice Impacted Women’s Alliance, said changes in staffing levels over the last few years aren’t responsible for what she called systemic failures of youth lockups.
“That report was a personal betrayal to me and to the advocates that I work with. This did not begin in 2021,” she told the board. “It began from the inception of this system. I would hope and I will continue to advocate that you have the courage to choose the kids versus your careers or your paychecks or your jobs.”
Carter said the agency began making changes before the DOJ released its report and said TJJD was making progress. That’s been helped, in part, by the 15% salary increase the agency was able to offer to retain employees and hire new staff.
“We’re not where we want to be, but we are in a much different place,” Carter said. “I am confident that there is no deliberate indifference to the conditions of our facilities or programming provided to our youth.”
Toon herself spent more than two decades in the criminal justice system, including several years as a juvenile. She said the TJJD board’s focus on staffing shortages is an attempt to mask other issues within the agency.
“It wasn’t just 2021, it wasn’t just 2020. It wasn’t just the staff or COVID. It was the system, right?” she said. “You could have all the staff that you want. It is the system and the nature of carceral systems to breed this type of abuse, especially with kids.”
The DOJ report specified that the harm juveniles are subjected to undermines their rehabilitation, something Toon said she’s seen firsthand.
“At the core, its carceral settings are harmful, and they’re especially harmful to children,” Toon said. “I survived despite this. Not because of it. The treatment that I got that stabilized my life, I got outside of prison – and I certainly didn’t get it there.”
Daniel Guajardo, the chief inspector general at TJJD, told the board he also took issue with some of the DOJ’s assessments.
“I don’t agree that the report is fully indicative of the operations of TJJD and their culture,” he said. “While there may be some bad actors of behavior which are criminal and inappropriate, those are relatively small percentages compared to the investigations we conduct.”
Guajardo specifically pushed back on the DOJ’s report that pepper spray was used excessively and more than necessary to “meet the threat posed.”
“Each use of pepper spray – just for the board’s awareness – each use of pepper spray or any injury to a youth is reviewed by a select team of independent OIG peace officers who do use of force review, and that’s all they do.”
If policy violations are suspected, Guajardo said are referred for further investigation within the agency itself.
Alycia Castillo, the associate director of policy at the Texas Civil Rights Project, said she was disappointed the board members didn’t press Guajardo for more details about the allegations in the report.
“These are the stories that the kids have. And this is what the DOJ found. Where is the discrepancy? Can someone point to that, outside of that question of staffing levels?” she told The Texas Newsroom. “I just can’t accept how the board was not willing to question any of that from him.”
Even if the bad actors within the agency represent a small minority, Castillo said their actions still thwart the progress or rehabilitation of the youths inside the facilities.
“If I have to go into that therapy setting with the guard who just raped me, I’m not going to receive the benefit of that evidence-based treatment, right? Or if I’m going in handcuffs or if I am going after I was just pepper sprayed in my cell,” she said.
When the report was released earlier this month, the Department of Justice gave TJJD officials seven weeks to address the issues raised in the report or face possible litigation.
Carter told the board that, out of the 48 recommendations the DOJ provided, 40 have been completed or are being reviewed.
Of the remaining items, Carter said the agency is still determining “what the report is not accurately reflecting.”
