TEXAS YOUTH COMMISSION
Questions linger about West Texas youth prison closure
TYC chief blasts critics; offers details on conditions
By Mike Ward
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Saturday, October 06, 2007
Demanding that critics back off, the head of the embattled Texas Youth Commission on Friday made public the details of conditions at a privately run West Texas youth prison that was closed this week.
Dimitria Pope, the commission's acting executive director, released a 10-page audit report and 13 pages of photographs detailing sanitation and safety infractions at the 200-bed Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte. The list includes broken smoke detectors, feces-smeared floors and ceiling lights, incorrect medical reports and dirty floors, bedding and clothing.
 TEXAS YOUTH COMMISSION A report released by the Texas Youth Commission included this photo of a fixture at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center showing gang graffiti, dead insects and a substance that might be feces. |
Insects, dead and alive, were found in light fixtures and on the floor. Intercoms were inoperative. Treatment programs were in disarray.
Some youths had to urinate and defecate in containers because their cells did not have toilets. Door locks did not work.
Some Youth Commission officials who toured the lockup had to scrape feces off their feet after they got outside, Pope said at a news conference during which she released the report and chastised contractor Geo Group Inc., which operated the facility.
"I wouldn't have kept my dog there, if I had a dog," Pope said. "Geo should be ashamed, and anyone who's rallying behind Geo should be ashamed."
Even so, the report states, "volunteers' perceptions of the facility varied. Some thought it was 'clean and nice.' "
Geo spokesman Pablo Paez did not return phone calls. But in an earlier statement, company officials defended their operation of the lockup, which housed offenders who were considered the most troublesome in Texas' juvenile corrections system.
Pope closed the facility in Bronte, near San Angelo, after a surprise inspection Monday, ordered the 195 residents moved to a state-run facility in Mart near Waco, and canceled the contract with Geo Group.
Pope reserved her harshest words Friday for her critics. Some have assailed the agency for not closing the Coke County facility sooner, and others have said that the problems were not that bad and that she should not have closed it.
"I feel like my integrity and my judgment has been questioned to no end," Pope said. Complaining that the agency "has been under the microscope far too long," she said, "I'm damned if I do and damned if I don't.
"It's time we get the confidence and respect we deserve."
The agency has been under increased scrutiny since last spring's sex-abuse and cover-up scandal. Gov. Rick Perry appointed a conservator to take over management and make quick changes, and lawmakers passed reform legislation.
Several critics of the agency and Pope remained unswayed in their critiques Friday, renewing calls for an investigation into how the Youth Commission handled the Coke County closure.
"I'm not backing off one bit," said Coke County Judge Roy Blair, who denounced the closure. "I don't approve of the way they handled this. I think they acted on poor information. They went out there with an agenda, in my opinion, to close it."
House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, who has asked how conditions could have become so bad without top Youth Commission officials knowing, said he intends to keep asking questions.
"I have a responsibility to the people of the State of Texas to get straight answers," he said.
Pope said that seven Youth Commission employees who were involved in monitoring the contract have been fired and that another has resigned.
She said ongoing criminal and agency investigations are under way to determine why Youth Commission field inspectors and others — including medical providers, local health inspectors and state school monitors — who should have been aware of the problems did nothing.
On Friday, officials began special on-site reviews of the agency's other residential contract providers. The sweep will include residential centers in Austin, Houston and San Antonio; apartments and a group home in Houston; the Brookhaven Youth Ranch in West; the Garza County Regional Juvenile Center in Post; a trades center in Cisco; and a facility for new mothers in Marion.
State officials conducted similar inspections of the 12 state-run juvenile facilities in the spring in response to the sex-abuse scandal, but most of the contract centers were not included in that effort.
ward.statesman@gmail.com
Additional material from The Associated Press.
