Center gives hope to town, sex felons
LITTLEFIELD — For the first time in years, there is hope on both sides of the razor wire in this remote West Texas town whose population has swelled by nearly 200 people — all of them convicted sex offenders — in the past month.
Townspeople think they have found a way to quit paying on millions of dollars in bonds used to build a long-mothballed prison after Austin officials leased it to open Texas’ first statewide treatment center for sex predators.
Many of the 181 men who have been moved there think they finally may have a way to graduate from the controversial program, the subject of a legislative overhaul this year following published
reports of mismanagement and questionable practices that have prevented anyone from completing treatment in the program’s 16-year history.
“There’s probably a few soreheads who didn’t want it, because it has sex offenders there, but I’m fine with it because it means jobs. And we need work here,” said Carl Enloe, 74, a retired oilfield crew chief. “Every time I go by there now and see men walking around inside those prison fences, I say good, because I know I’m not paying for that place anymore.”
On Wednesday, as state officials gave the first public tour of the facility, many of the offenders inside seemed just as optimistic, if initially skeptical after raising concerns about food portions, recreation and new treatment programs.
As Darryl Day, 48, a repeat sex offender from Fort Worth explained, “It gives me an opportunity to complete the program and actually graduate back into the community. Before, for a lot of the men, there was no hope.”
Under Texas’ civil commitment law, repeat sex offenders who have been deemed likely to commit new crimes may be ordered into a supervised treatment program by a judge upon their release from prison. Since 1998, however, none of the more than 350 men ordered into the program has been allowed to complete the program and been released; nearly half have been sent back to prison for violating program rules.
Constitutional issues related to the operation of the program, as well as management and contract irregularities, prompted the Texas Legislature to overhaul the civil commitment program, as well as the agency in charge of it, now called the Texas Civil Commitment Office. Eventual freedom is goal
A chief component of the reform was the creation of a multi-tiered treatment program that allows offenders increasing freedom as they complete each level, with the goal of ultimately releasing them back into the community under ongoing supervision.
Additionally, the state was under pressure to find a single facility to house the program after halfway houses in Houston, Dallas, Austin, Fort Worth and El Paso said the men no longer would be welcome after their contracts with the state ended Aug. 31.
Dozens of other Texas cities refused that opportunity, as state officials scoured the state for a facility large enough to house the program. Littlefield emerged during the summer as the sole place for the new center, after more than 200 other sites were considered.
Enloe and Johnny Rosemond, 56, another longtime Littlefield resident, said the reopening of the former prison once known as the Billy Clayton Detention Center — named after a Texas House speaker who is, perhaps, the town’s most famous son after Waylon Jennings, who grew up here — said the sagging local economy drove support to bring the sex-predator center here.
“By opening that prison back up, people will go to work out there, they will buy gas and groceries, they will put money back into the city,” Rosemond said. “The words ‘sex offenders’ was what put people off initially. But when we realized they were going to be behind fences, and that this was just a stopping point before they got out and went someplace else, most people were OK with it.”
For many residents and officials, the program is a godsend.
The lockup had been vacant since its days as a private prison ended in 2009, when the market to house convicts for other states shriveled. Several attempts since then to lease it to house immigration detainees and sex offenders from other states, among other ideas, all flopped.
That left residents of this flatlands town of 6,000 about 40 miles northwest of Lubbock paying off the remaining costs for the $11 million facility through higher taxes even as the local economy faltered.
“We lost the denim mill and 300 jobs. Several businesses closed. Things haven’t been looking good,” explained Tom Kelton, 65, who lives a mile away from the facility. “I’m okay with having it.” Looking for stability
On Wednesday, as Sens. John Whitmire, D-Houston, and Charles Perry, RLubbock, toured the center with top officials of the Texas Civil Commitment Office, many voiced hope that the program finally may be getting on a stable route to success.
“I’m impressed. I get a good feeling seeing what’s here,” said Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee and the architect of the reforms. “Let’s say I’m guardedly optimistic that we’re headed in the right direction with this program.”
Added Perry, a member of Whitmire’s committee whose district includes Littlefield, “What I see is great opportunity for these men to work through this program and graduate, if they’re willing to.”
Program officials repeatedly stressed Wednesday that the center is a treatment facility, not a prison.
Even so, vestiges of the old prison are everywhere: tall fences topped with razor wire surround the facility, many staff wear guardlike uniforms, offenders say they are locked in their dorms for daily counts to make sure no one has left, and offenders and prisoners must go through locked steel doors with bars to get from one place to another.
Now, however, potted plants decorate the lobby. The “honors dorm” has a foosball table and black leather couches where ‘residents’ can watch television. And they wear regular clothes, not uniforms. Officials said they plan to hang curtains soon to give the place a more homey touch.
For Roger Nalls Jr., 44, who has been in the program for six years, the new surroundings have him feeling optimistic for the first time in years that he eventually may get out.
“It gives me hope,” Nalls said. “For the first time in a long time, I feel like the program can work.”