TYC Special Master Speaks
March 27th, 2007 at 7:25 pm
Jay Kimbrough, the man in charge of the investigation into the Texas Youth Commission, continued his advocacy campaign Tuesday in a hearing at the UT School of Law. Whether pushing for change at the agency or giving voice to the unheard complaints of young prisoners, Kimbrough is only that, a voice. He provides lots of motion but little movement. Kimbrough bluntly acknowledged yesterday that he has no statutory power.
Which might be too bad, since Kimbrough’s testimony today before a panel of the National Prison Rape Elimination Commission forcefully called for the reforms that Ed Owens, the TYC official who now heads the agency since its board resigned, is getting taken to the mat for not implementing fast enough. Those include: increased centralized control, better oversight and transparency within the agency, better guard training, more surveillance at facilities, “concurrent jurisdiction” between state and local prosecutors to make sure cases get to grand juries promptly, and a wider variety of reporting methods available to prisoners so they can make allegations without fearing retribution.
When it comes to abuse, “The operative word is prevention,” Kimbrough told the commission. Appearing with Kimbrough, Rep. Jerry Madden (R-Plano), the chair the House Committee on Corrections, forcefully agreed with him.
Madden, for his part, seemed particularly eager to lead the reform charge. He emphatically told the panel that he had seen TYC’s collapse coming and that he had filed reform legislation before all this hit the media . It all came off as dangerously close to doth-protest-too-much territory. But at least Madden and Kimbrough both stressed the need to get these reforms into law, rather than relying on the agency (even an overhauled TYC) to implement them on their own accord.
The big problem remains that reforming this agency is quickly devolving into a bureaucratic nightmare, as Perry and the Legislature spar over the best way to implement changes. Grits for Breakfast sums it up best:
So now we’re in the following situation: TYC does not have a board as required under law and Governor Perry has not moved to appoint new boardmembers as he’s empowered to, nor has he created a conservatorship, his other legal option. All power is vested in an executive director for whom the state last year paid a civil settlement in response to charges he helped cover up a sex scandal at Texas’ adult corrections agency. No board nor anyone else is there with legal authority to provide him oversight. Still, Perry is resisting the legal “conservatorship” and insisting on this “Special Master” mechanism that has no basis in history or law.
Add to that a point that Kimbrough brought up, which hadn’t even occurred to me. It’s easy enough to track down complaints from inmates currently in TYC facilities. It’s more difficult but still plausible to track down former youth inmates now on parole or those in the adult prison system. But there are a ton of former TYC inmates who are no longer in the prison system at all. Their unreported abuses and unfairly extended sentences will be much harder to track down and verify, if reported at all.
It’s these kids that “keep me up late at night,” Kimbrough said.
Meanwhile, add to the unknowns the question reverberating through the Capitol press corps at the moment. What did Perry know and when did he know it?
March 27th, 2007 at 9:56 pm
I agree that there needs to be a better system for training of guards (more consistency agency wide), more safety for staff and students through better surveillance systems and smaller staff/student and Case Manager/student ratios. The one thing we can be sure of is that for youth who have grown up knowing a criminal life style or have had lack of structure and discipline, they must have the structure and the discipline and most of the time they want it and then for long term change to occur, the have to have the therapeutic interventions by the Case Manager. These kids are young and they are the future. We argue over who did this and who did that and they kids are getting lost in the mix. The problem has been identified—-we all know what needs to be done, now let’s just do it.
Stop pointing fingers for goodness sakes. I mean everyone wants to blame TYC for hiring this person or that person but if we got down to it, why didn’t TDCJ file charges on those staff that were hired by TYC that had raped inmates or had relationships with inmates. It didn’t seem to be an issue then until they were hired by TYC based on references received by TDCJ. OK, many people made mistakes in this not just TYC.
April 5th, 2007 at 11:48 pm
The Texas House approved a proposed constitutional amendment Wednesday that would weaken the governor’s powers by requiring lawmakers to briefly meet after a regular legislative session is over to consider any bills that the governor has vetoed.