Texas lawmakers have been facing pressure to do something about violence in the state’s juvenile justice system.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department oversees about 700 minors as young as age 10. Of those, about 80% are Black or Latino. Our partners at KERA News reported that a Dallas County juvenile detention officer was recently severely injured by a female in custody. Officials say the juvenile had assaulted staff before.
Now there’s legislation that would make it possible for minors as young as 15 to be transferred to adult facilities if they commit a second felony – such as assaulting staff – or for what’s termed as delinquent conduct.
Michele Deitch, who directs the LBJ School’s Prison and Jail Innovation Lab at the University of Texas at Austin, said Senate Bill 1727 concerns her.
“It would transfer more youth from the juvenile system to adult prisons in Texas. And that’s really concerning,” she said. “These are young kids. We’re talking 15, 16 year olds who could end up in adult prison.”
» MORE FROM THE LEGISLATURE: ‘Culture war’ issues haven’t defined this Texas legislative session — but bills on these issues are still advancing
Deitch said this bill comes at a time when lawmakers in Texas are looking at making sentencing harsher for juveniles and adults.
“I think that there’s a perception on the part of some policymakers that if you make sentences harsher, and if you get more youth in adult prisons or with much longer sentences, that it will somehow be a deterrent to bad behavior,” she said. “But in fact, most kids aren’t thinking about the consequences of their actions, so this probably wouldn’t even be a deterrent.”
If passed, this law would also limit prosecutorial discretion and judicial discretion when it comes to sentencing young people, Deitch said, because it takes away the options that prosecutors would have to sentence kids to community supervision.
Another bill on the table this session, Senate Bill 2693, would also change which groups have access to juvenile detention facilities.
“It’s clearly designed to punish advocacy groups that had taken steps to protect youth in the system who were being abused,” Deitch said. “Some of these advocacy groups had reported some of these abuses to the Department of Justice. And as a result, this bill would cut off these advocacy groups’ access to the facilities.
“And it would also deny them the ability to consult with the juvenile justice agency, TJJD, on issues such as their regionalization plan.”
» GET MORE NEWS FROM AROUND THE STATE: Sign up for Texas Standard’s weekly newsletters
Deitch said that in her mind, this change doesn’t serve anybody’s interests.
“It’s a retaliatory bill,” she said. “Really all it’s doing is isolating and punishing youth who are at risk and making them even more vulnerable to abuses.”
Deitch said she would like to see policy changes that help address the underlying needs of kids in juvenile detention.
“The Legislature is trying to make things much harsher for kids in the system, punishing them for the failures of the system to address their underlying needs,” she said. “These are kids who have very, very serious needs for mental health treatment and other kinds of social services.
“The one thing we know doesn’t work with them is treating them in ways that are purely punitive. Putting them in the adult system, cutting off their access to advocacy groups who are looking out for their interests, all of that is going to result in worse outcomes for these youth, and it’s really going to put public safety at risk.”
