Young inmates to move to revamped unit

TDCJ claims transfer isn’t related to incident last year involving sex act with minor, adult

HUNTSVILLE — The Texas prison system is set to move its few dozen youth offenders from a Brazoria prison to the former death row unit in Huntsville in coming weeks, a change announced in the wake of a sex incident investigation at the unit south of Houston.

For some advocates and lawmakers, the shift to the epicenter of the prison system — in a selfcontained unit with more readily available programming — seems cause for hope.

“I’m very pleased with the move, and I think it brings the Youthful Offender Program in closer contact with the administration,” said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston. “It wasn’t the best location before; they needed to be more mainstream, and if you’re in Huntsville, you’re in the nerve center of where the system is.”

Texas Department of Criminal Justice officials have said the move is not related to the incident last year, when an adult prisoner allegedly engaged in a sex act with a teen in the program at its current location in the Clemens Unit in Brazoria County. The alleged sex act — which happened despite the requirement that kids be held separate from adults — sparked an investigation and was followed by a number of staff departures, officials said.

Whatever the reason for the move, the new unit will make it easier to enforce that required separation. The freshly painted three-tier wing is completely self-contained, with a mess hall table and TVs alongside the double-bunked cells.

One cell is converted to a small medical unit, and two others have been repurposed for one-on-one meeting rooms. Those cells are air-conditioned, but the rest of the tier is cooled by fans and an exhaust system.

Most of the structured programs — outside of the GED classes through Windham school district — will be in a dayroom area. There, the windows into the rest of the facility are covered with murals of oceans and islands. Teens will

receive cognitive-behavioral therapy-based counseling and learn social skills through a federal framework called Positive Behavior Interventions and Supports.

A basketball court and a 200square-foot grassy area that the prison hopes to use for horticulture or landscaping are separated from the adult prisoners nearby with mesh and fencing.

Commissary gets delivered cell-side, and the only time they’ll need to leave is to go to school or outside medical trips, officials said.

“This space allows us to be more inclusive,” said Lorie Davis, TDCJ’s institutional division director.

The cells themselves are a little bigger than at Clemens, officials said, but the program’s max capacity will decrease to 52. Currently, YOP — also known as the COURAGE program — has only 31 inmates, though five years ago it had twice that.

The Youthful Offender Program and the decision to keep kids in adult prisons has long been a source of controversy in Texas and across the nation. Since Missouri approved raising the age of criminal responsibility last month, the Lone Star State is one of just four that treats 17-year-olds as adults — though some here enter the adult prison system as young as 14 if they’ve been certified as adults.

“The new unit is a definitely an improvement from what they had at Clemens, so that’s something to look forward to,” said Jennifer Erschabek of Texas Inmate Families Association. “It’s great that they provide them the security now, but it would be better if we could just keep our children at home and provide mental health care and the services they need in their communities.”

Elizabeth Henneke, executive director of the Lone Star Justice Alliance, heralded the increased access to programming in the new location but highlighted concerns about continuing to incarcerate youth in prison systems designed for adults.

“I’m optimistic about the changes,” she said, “but I’m also aware that most of the research suggests that these folks are still better-placed in the juvenile justice system.”

The Ellis Unit YOP program will house only boys; female inmates under 18 are housed at the Hilltop Unit in Gatesville.