Report: Youths Wield Control at State's Largest Lockup
Powerful ringleaders at the state's largest youth lockup have established a hierarchy in which the weakest offenders are "bought and owned" with drugs, cigarettes and money, according to a report signed Friday by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s independent ombudsman that raised serious concerns about security at the Giddings State School.
“The control these youth have gained has spread across this campus, even though they are not huge in number, they are controlling the culture on this campus,” the ombudsman reported.
Three ombudsman staff conducted a special monitoring visit at the Giddings facility March 29. With more than ...
Comments (4)
Tim Collins via Texas Tribune on Facebook
Same in adult prisons. We need to re:think free movement within the walls of a prison
BiffTannen
Once again proving that the state will dictate to women about a fetus, but once you're out of the womb they couldn't care less.
Dale Curry
Thank you Tribune, for another exceptional job reporting. The conditions this article reported at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) from the Ombudsmen Report are simply abhorrent. Remembering the TJJD is the very department created out of the ashes of the scandal at the Texas Youth Commission, only causes more heartburn as one realizes these conditions are the result of four plus years of reforms. If this is the reform this Governor and his Republican co-conspirators have been promising, we have been obviously mislead.
I was especially troubled over the statistic that 70% of the YOUTH released from Giddings, reported that gangs had either a lot or a “huge amount of power” at the lockup. I knew this Governor was staunchly in favor of privatization of Government services; however if he feels that allowing the gangs to take over the victimization of the most vulnerable incarcerated is the reform the citizens expected, he is even more clueless than anyone ever thought possible for this man. And that is a high hurdle to hit. Are we also to consider the buying and selling of the most vulnerable within the State facility more of those reforms? This governor and the republican legislature have reformed us into yet another nightmare, and one more budget cut will not fix the problem.
It will be staff that will bear the brunt of the blame and clearly there might be a serious problem in these regards. Personally, I would like to know just how much has been cut from TJJD budget during the last session, and what has happened to the agency’s staffing levels. However, as to the problems with staff, most telling was the Ombudsman report detailing that the leaders have been identified to staff. Yet in their response staffs claims, “they (staff) are attempting to identify “Negative Leaders.” Here’s a suggestion: take a look at those same youth that staff are “aware” are responsible for the bullying and investigate whether these same youths are involved with the buying and selling of the more vulnerable youths, whether they might be involved with the sale of drugs and contraband, extortion, or other criminal activity within our youth justice system.
Einstein famously defined insanity as doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results. Four years ago, our state was shaken by abuse and sex scandals at the predecessor organization to TJJD. This Governor and this Republican administration of these departments promised us the reforms we demanded while blaming the staff. So, when the inevitable finger pointing starts from the Governor’s office, remember just who is ultimately responsible, and who has been promising those reforms. A civilized society does not permit the buying, selling, and victimization of vulnerable youths within our very youth justice institutions. I would respectfully suggest to this Governor, he thinks less about distorting the President’s agenda and more about the job he has been elected to perform. One such task is ensuring our Juvenile Justice Department stops providing crash courses to the young gang members on how to leverage the system to improve efficiency for their criminal activities within the juvenile justice department. So, when the Governor and the republicans promise to those “reforms”, perhaps this time we should get ask him to write down just what those reforms look like before we start handing the keys over to the gangs.
cheese doodle
Jco Burned out. said...
Monkey see monkey do. This is fantastic and sums it all up well! If you start with a cage containing five monkeys and inside the cage, hang a banana on a string from the top and then you place a set of stairs under the banana, before long a monkey will go to the stairs and climb toward the banana. As soon as he touches the stairs, you spray all the other monkeys with cold water. After a while another monkey makes an attempt with same result .... all the other monkeys are sprayed with cold water. Pretty soon when another monkey tries to climb the stairs, the other monkeys will try to prevent it. Now, put the cold water away. Remove one monkey from the cage and replace it with a new one. The new monkey sees the banana and attempts to climb the stairs. To his shock, all of the other monkeys beat him mercilessly. After another attempt and attack, he knows that if he tries to climb the stairs he will be assaulted. Next, remove another of the original five monkeys, replacing it with a new one. The newcomer goes to the stairs and is attacked. The previous newcomer takes part in the punishment... with enthusiasm. Then, replace a third original monkey with a new one, followed by a fourth, then the fifth. Every time the newest monkey takes to the stairs he is attacked. Most of the monkeys that are beating him up have no idea why they were not permitted to climb the stairs. Neither do they know why they are participating in the beating of the newest monkey. Finally, having replaced all of the original monkeys, none of the remaining monkeys will have ever been sprayed with cold water. Nevertheless, none of the monkeys will try to climb the stairway for the banana. Why, you ask? Because in their minds... that is the way it has always been! This, my friends, is how the government operates... and is why, from time to time, all of the monkeys need to be REPLACED AT THE SAME TIME!
Taken from the TDJJ site
http://tdjj.yolasite.com/