Feds find ‘systemic’ juvenile justice problems
A teen’s death in a state mental health facility spurred a federal agency to release an early report of its investigation into the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, which includes claims of chronic understaffing and possible civil rights violations.
The report found a systemic “lack of adequate health care, education, recreation, sanitation, religious support and safety.”
Representatives for the department pushed back on some of the harshest criticisms in the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights report, saying they already have made progress in many of the areas noted.
“The agency has already been working on the issues raised in the report with the help of the Legislature and has made tremendous progress in staffing and treatment capacity,” said Barbara Kessler, a spokesperson for the organization.
Authors of the report said they were compelled to issue the findings in abbreviated form sooner than expected because of the March 24 suicide of Joshua Keith Beasley Jr., 16, while he was staying in a Fort Bend psychiatric facility.
The death brought urgency to the agency’s concerns about access to mental health resources, patients’ ability to report abuse, mistreatment and “denial of rights in a safe, private manner without fear of repercussion.” The report also raised doubts about “the overall state and effectiveness of these facilities in their current form.”
Investigators found the agency, in June 2022, had filled about 50 percent of its full-time correction officer positions, the report asserts. The Texas Rangers in December 2021 responded to help deal with staff shortages, the report reads.
Kessler provided percentages showing those positions are now 75 percent filled and that facilities have been at full programming about 90 percent of the time since October 2022. She did not provide aggregate numbers of staffers.
A presentation provided to Hearst Newspapers showed some improvement in the percentage of days each month in which juveniles were under restriction versus normal operations. In December 2021, those in facilities had normal days about 55 percent of the time, compared with 99 percent in April 2023, according to the presentation.
Youths were sometimes put on lockdown when there were not enough staff to supervise them, the presentation stated.
The report also found the youths' civil rights may be violated, but the federal agency does not go into great detail as it promises more details in the full report.
However, in another finding, the report brings up safety concerns for youth and staff because of low staffing numbers, including increased violence.
“The instability in staffing levels decreases peer monitoring, which can increase opportunities for predatory staff to engage in abuse or exploitations,” the report reads. “There has been an increase in dangerous incidents involving the use of force and sexual violence.”
The investigation found an increase in sexual misconduct investigations at four secure facilities by the Office of Inspector General between 2020 and 2022. Between January and August 2020, all five facilities reported using restraints on youth, totaling 2,947 times.
State leaders, in the wake of Beasley's death, moved to fire seven prison employees in Fort Bend County after an investigation determined they failed to follow department policy and conduct regular checks on inmates at the Wayne Scott Unit in Richmond, said Robert Hurst, a spokesperson for the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.
Beasley had been part of the system's youthful offender program since September after a transfer from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Prison officials brought Beasley to the psychiatric unit on Feb. 23 after he attempted to harm himself, Hurst said.
Hurst declined to comment about the latest civil rights commission report, explaining the matter concerned the juvenile justice department, separate from the department of criminal justice.