Closed youth facility had passed recent inspections

Lawmakers, local officials debate whether agency acted too soon.

A West Texas youth prison shuttered three days ago for squalid and unhealthy conditions by Texas Youth Commission chiefs had passed numerous recent health and safety inspections, local officials confirmed Wednesday as they challenged the closure decision.

The disclosure came amid a growing political storm over the surprise shutdown of the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center.

Lawmakers have demanded an investigation into what they characterized as an ill-conceived publicity stunt, and an influential state senator called for an expanded investigation into other state contracts held by the company that operated the 200-bed lockup outside Bronte.

The company, Geo Group Inc., contended that it received no notice of deficiencies before Youth Commission Acting Director Dimitria Pope canceled its contract Monday evening. By midday Tuesday, all 195 young offenders had been bused to state-run lockups.

The reason, Youth Commission officials said, was unsanitary and unsafe conditions: dirty bedding and clothes, feces-smeared cells, broken fire alarms and sprinklers, and a lack of meaningful rehabilitation programs, among other things.

State Rep. Drew Darby, R-San Angelo, and Coke County Judge Roy Blair said the lockup had passed all recent inspections — including those by on-site Youth Commission monitors. Just last Friday, the Youth Commission had signed a 30-day contract extension with Geo to continue operating the facility, the latest since the original contract expired more than a year ago.

"If it was so bad, why did they extend the contract?" asked Darby, a member of the powerful House Appropriations Committee. "There's no logical explanation for this action, and I want to see everything TYC has that they think can justify this."

Blair said the lockup passed a fire inspection in early September, as well as separate inspections by health and school officials. In fact, the judge said the local Commissioners Court inspects the lockup at least once each quarter because it is owned by the county.

"Every inspection they had they passed," Blair said, noting that the closure left more than 100 people in Bronte — population 1,100 — out of work. "To me, it looks like somebody had an agenda to close this place before they ever came down here. And that's not right."

Youth Commission officials on Wednesday defended their decision. The same day, at least five agency employees who were involved in inspecting the lockup had been fired.

"What you have is a failure of oversight by a number of entities, not just TYC," said agency spokesman Jim Hurley. "We are not an economic development tool. ... Our primary responsibility here is to the kids, their parents and to the people of the State of Texas. There was no other decision that could be made."

Pablo Paez, director of corporate relations for Geo Group, based in Boca Raton, Fla., said Wednesday that the company has "been providing quality services" since the contract began in 1994. "We received no notice of any deficiencies" before the shutdown order came, he said.

The firm, which operates lockups in 18 states and five foreign countries, including a federal detention center housing regional immigration detainees at Guantánamo Bay in Cuba, had been cited for problems at the Bronte lockup and has been the focus of complaints in other states. But company officials said those problems were isolated and quickly corrected.

Amid the demands for a full inquiry into the Coke County closure, Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, Criminal Justice Committee chairman, called Wednesday for a statewide investigation of the other nine state lockups operated by Geo, which hold as many as 5,000 adult offenders.

He also said that Geo officials are improperly arm-twisting lawmakers in an attempt to overturn the cancellation of the $8 million-a-year Youth Commission contract.

"The evidence is clear that they were not doing the job in Coke County because the conditions there were deplorable," Whitmire said, threatening to hold a public hearing of his committee to air more details, including videos and photos. "They're a special interest that's attempting to prevent the Youth Commission from protecting the youth ... and we shouldn't allow anyone in or out of government to put the interest of corporations ahead of the children."

House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, a Richardson Republican who heads a special legislative committee overseeing Youth Commission reforms in the wake of an abuse scandal that made headlines this spring, applauded Whitmire's call for an expanded investigation of Geo. But he said Youth Commission officials need to fully explain their decision, as well.

"The TYC still has a lot of questions to answer — like why their monitoring system did not work in Coke County, where they had five monitors, and why should we have any confidence that any of their other monitoring systems are working now," he said. "TYC officials have said the abuse and problems have stopped, but in just a few days we've seen an arrest for sexual abuse in Gainesville, this situation in Coke County and problems at other facilities. I think it's clear we still have multitude of problems at this agency."

Blair, meanwhile, said he remained unconvinced that the Bronte lockup should have been closed — even by a Youth Commission report that detailed complaints by youths about unsanitary conditions and a lack of programs.

"I was told (TYC representatives) came out with brownies and Cokes, and passed them around to get youths to talk to them," said Blair, who said he was a 28-year veteran of the Texas Department of Public Safety before becoming county judge.

"You can take a Coke and a brownie and get someone to say whatever you want them to. If things were so bad, why didn't they ever tell the company to fix the problems? And why shut it down before you give them a chance to do that?

"This just doesn't add up."