The following article appeared in the Austin American Statesman. Seems like a pretty good case is made by the article for the problems that we will see from the alleged reform of TYC:

TYC overhaul raises high hopes but faces cold reality
Local communities worry about burdens of reform.
By Eric Dexheimer
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Sunday, April 29, 2007

Last July, Jonathan L. walked out of the Texas Youth Commission's Crockett State School with high hopes. After a little more than a year in state lockup, the tall, jug-eared 16-year-old was ready to live in the free world.

With the help of counselors and a parole officer, Jonathan compiled a list of his good intentions. He would get along better with his family and work toward college. His mother, a former Youth Commission guard, was optimistic, even though her son was the victim of a confirmed assault by a guard in 2005. "I believe in that program," she says. "I believe they prepared him the best they could."

Jonathan moved back home, found a job at a McDonald's and cruised through his community service requirements. "The success plan helped me out a lot," he says.

But staying away from his old friends was hard. Soon he was using cocaine and drinking � not surprising, he says, because his brother was also on drugs. He started skipping counseling appointments. "His parole officer never called, and he was never home," his mother says.

Today, a year older and seemingly little wiser, Jonathan is back in the Youth Commission's standard-issue orange jumpsuit, sitting in a plastic chair in dorm 6B at the Marlin Orientation and Assessment Unit near Waco. He was arrested barely five months after his release for assaulting another teenager outside a Wal-Mart. This time he is sentenced to six years, which, if served out, he will finish in adult prison.

His story cuts to the heart of a debate about the future of the scandal-plagued Youth Commission that is gathering momentum. This spring, after some guards were found to have sexually assaulted inmates and top administrators failed to act, legislators moved quickly to overhaul the agency.

A primary goal is to shrink the Youth Commission population, from about 4,800 youths to 3,000. Juveniles convicted of less serious crimes � even if they offended repeatedly � would not be sentenced to the agency anymore. Those who are would be released earlier.

The idea is to make the lockups a place only for offenders who are most likely a threat to public safety or to themselves. Cutting the ratio of inmates to staff would make supervision easier and treatment more effective, reformers say.

Yet kids like Jonathan, who can't seem to stay out of trouble, are where the big plans bump into reality. Like him, 70 percent of persistent offenders sent to the Youth Commission have already been to at least one residential treatment program. Like him, more than half will be arrested again after they leave the agency.

Rep. Jerry Madden, R-Richardson, who is pushing the Youth Commission reform bill, insists it will funnel enough financial support to the local communities that will be asked to handle hundreds of additional juvenile delinquents. "There's substantial additional money," he said, adding that the state also will be active in looking for new and better ways to keep youth offenders out of lockups.

But a growing chorus of critics wonders if the rush to revamp the agency might create more problems than it solves. They fear that narrowing the Youth Commission's role in the juvenile justice system will be like squeezing a balloon: The bulge of criminally inclined youths will reappear in local communities ill-prepared to deal with it.

"People who are being sent to the Youth Commission are truly people who are being sent there as a last resort," Williamson County District Attorney John Bradley said. "What magical alternative will now surface in my community that I haven't already tried?"

Even places with plenty of resources ask what else they can try when a child continues to break the law. Judge Jeanne Meurer, chairwoman of Travis County's Juvenile Board, said her county boasts an array of opportunities for kids to turn their lives around, yet she still sends about 100 kids a year to the Youth Commission because nothing else has worked.

"It's always good to keep kids in their communities," Meurer said. "But it's easier said than done."

In less well-heeled rural areas, probation officials have long relied on the Youth Commission to take their delinquent kids when their own communities run short of treatment options or the closest counseling center is hundreds of miles away.

"What are we going to do with a child who goes out and commits misdemeanor after misdemeanor?" asked Steven Minch, chief juvenile probation officer of Jackson County in Southeast Texas. "I don't know. Send them up to the Legislature and let them have 'em."

Too many kids, not enough resources

On a recent morning, a half-dozen members of the Caldwell County Juvenile Probation Department sat down for their regular case meeting in a windowless room of a cinderblock building near Lockhart's historical limestone courthouse. Motivational posters share wall space with fliers advertising a hot line to report Texas Youth Commission wrongdoing.

Three-quarters of the juveniles who end up at the Youth Commission already have a criminal record and so are on probation. Legislators have promised to spend millions of dollars more to treat them in local communities. But a morning here demonstrates what a tall order that would be.

Chief Officer Jay Monkerud warns that a 16-year-old boy is back after his second trip to a boot camp: "Remember what happened last time: He wasn't out two weeks when he assaulted his brother."

The staff groans. In addition to stints at the military-style boot camps, the teenager has already attended two residential treatment programs and received mental health and anger management counseling. His family has participated in other programs.

Next, Monkerud wonders what to do with a 17-year-old boy with a long rap sheet who wants to move to Houston. He's been on probation for four years and has violated its terms a half-dozen times. Despite numerous treatments, he appears to be getting worse. "This kid's been given a lot of chances," one of the officers says.

A referral to the Youth Commission is overruled. The department will recommend two weeks of close supervision in his home and a referral to Narcotics Anonymous.

"Let's hope it works," another staffer warns. "Because if it doesn't, we got a kid dead on the street because we let him move to Houston and join a gang."

If the Legislature prevents young offenders from going to the Youth Commission, they will have to be treated or locked up locally. Yet those who work in the field say there aren't nearly enough facilities and treatments to handle the number of offenders now � never mind the thousands more who will need it.

Local juvenile probation departments use state and local money to pay for counseling and training. But most run dry well before they run out of kids who need it.

"It's kind of luck of the draw," said Mark Williams, who runs juvenile probation for seven counties in West Texas around San Angelo. "If a kid gets in trouble at the beginning of the year, there probably will be money. If it's at the end of the year, there might not be."

One way to stretch the money is shorter and shorter treatments. In 2001, the average time a Texas juvenile offender spent in a residential treatment program was 120 days. By 2005, that was down to 90 days.

Experts say that's not enough time to do much good. But in some places, even three months is a luxury. The average stay in Harris County's Delta Boot Camp has shrunk to a little more than two months, a spokeswoman says.

A recent survey revealed that 43 percent of Texas' local probation departments offered fewer services to juveniles in 2005 than in 2001. Last year, three youth residential facilities closed because counties couldn't afford to send kids there anymore.

Rural counties, in particular, have turned to the Youth Commission for free counseling and treatment. No place sends a larger share of its juvenile offenders to the commission than Jackson County, where about 14 percent of the kids on probation in 2005 were referred to the agency, versus a statewide average of 2.4 percent.

"We've done what we could with the resources we have available," Minch said. But with no nearby treatment facilities, virtually every youthful sex offender and most kids with severe substance abuse problems go to the Youth Commission, he said.

Legislators have promised to return to the counties any money the Youth Commission saves by housing fewer kids, plus cash for additional counseling and training � up to $47 million if all the proposals pass. Probation departments, reeling from years of funding cuts, say that still won't cover their costs.

And more money doesn't guarantee that local programs will be more effective � or any safer � than what's at the Youth Commission. At any given time, nearly 1,300 juveniles are locked up in the 35 secure facilities operated or paid for by Texas counties. Last year, administrators investigated 160 cases of abuse and neglect at those facilities.

A 2002 state report on juvenile justice found persistent problems in several local detention facilities; one let a sex offender stay on the job despite being alerted to his criminal past. Several have shut down after problems were revealed, ranging from financial difficulties to exploiting kids in their care.

Release struggles

In Tom Green County, Mark Williams is preparing for the return of a familiar face. In December 2003, Williams referred a 14-year-old boy to the Youth Commission after he'd committed numerous crimes � the last a sexual assault on a 5-year-old � and flunked out of three separate local residential treatment programs, at a cost to taxpayers of about $40,000.

Now 17, the boy is returning home as part of the Youth Commission's downsizing efforts � even though, Williams said, he racked up more than 1,000 behavior violations and never advanced beyond the lowest levels of the agency's behavior modification program. Although eligible for sex offender and drug treatment, the boy received neither at the commission.

"He's been there a long time, but it doesn't look like he's done much but be locked up," Williams said, adding that little awaits him in San Angelo, either. The boy's mother lives on disability in a two-bedroom apartment, where he will return to make his new life.

"We've already done everything we know to do," Williams said. "We'll encourage him to apply for a job and line up some mental health counseling. Now that he's 17, if he gets in trouble again he'll go to the county jail."

Experts agree the time immediately after an offender is released from lockup is crucial to his future success. "The whole ballgame is re-entry," said Barry Krisberg, president of the California-based National Council on Crime and Delinquency.

The Youth Commission, which handles parole in Texas' larger cities, has contracts with more than a dozen organizations across the state to help kids ease into the free world. But in recent years the agency has used them less and less. At one time, according to a spokesman, 1,300 youths were in such programs; today, the number is less than 500.

In rural areas, meanwhile, the money and treatments that were unavailable or ineffective when the juvenile offenders were on probation are no different when they return on parole. Like many rural Texas counties, Tom Green's probation department handles juveniles paroled from the Youth Commission, for which the state pays $9.50 per client per day, Williams said. With counseling costing $60 an hour, the money doesn't go far.

Paperwork hassles abound. After being locked up for a month or more, a juvenile loses Medicaid eligibility and must reapply upon his release. Kids who received no sex offender treatment while in the Youth Commission's care must apply for a special waiver to have the state pay for treatment when they get out.

Parole officers say finding jobs for recently released kids is essential, but few employers are willing to take a chance on a teenage ex-con. When Mary Joe Martinez's son was released after nearly two years in the Youth Commission's care, "he didn't have anything, and he wasn't offered anything," his mother said from her home in San Antonio. "It took him months to get a job. No one would hire him."

"There's nothing waiting for our kids when they get out," said Houston resident Valquitta Miller, whose 19-year-old son was released last month after three years in the Youth Commission. "No papers, no pamphlets, no direction, no nothing."

'Fake it to make it'

Back at the Youth Commission's Marlin facility, it's often not clear what would have made a difference. A self-professed Houston gang member since the age of 12, Robert F. was committed to the commission's Beaumont and Mart facilities in May 2004, when he was 13, for shooting another teenager in the leg. He said he breezed through the program.

"It was easy," he said. "I don't bang here; I bang in the free. Fake it to make it."

He was released in May 2006 to live with his mother, who had moved from their old neighborhood to give Robert a better chance. Because he'd done so well at the Youth Commission, he required only minimum supervision; he met with his parole officer twice a month, he said.

Counselors also arranged for him to attend anger management classes � "I got a temper," he admitted � but he didn't go. After a short time, he decided to skip school, too.

Last winter, Robert was busted for evading arrest and criminal trespass after he and some friends went into a school looking for a boy who'd disrespected him. "I'm lucky," he said. "I've done a lot worse."

David S. spent just under a year at the Youth Commission before his release to his aunt and uncle in Houston. He checked in with his parole officer religiously. But, he said, "I was never home. I did whatever I wanted."

He hung out with his old friends and started breaking into cars. In March, a month before his 17th birthday and three months after his release, he was busted. Two weeks ago, he returned to the Youth Commission.

"That's how I am," he said with a shrug. "It's not like I'm going out there thinking I'm gonna be doing crimes. It's just what I do. Ain't nothin' gonna stop me."

Almost surely chaos, at least in the short term.

Absolute chaos, and the chances are high that it will be worse than it was after this latest debacle.

...what to tell a drowning town....

We rarely have felons to commit - especially since so many possession and (for now) car thefts are misdemeanors. When there is no $ for placement, what are we supposed to do with a fifth time in a year misdemeanor offender?

Within two years, schools and communities are going to be on the warpath, drowning in juvie delinquents.

Lisa L. Peterson
Nolan County Attorney

"It's always good to keep kids in their communities," Meurer said. "But it's easier said than done."

This was the quote that kinda jumped out at me b/c the vast majority of our kids that we send to Boot camp & rehab do very well in the structured environment and only fall back on their ways when they get back into their community and fall back into running with their old crowd and their old ways in order to fit in.
The article seemed to say the same thing. Most of the juvi's they mentioned in it fall back into trouble when they go back to their old neighborhoods and running with the old crowd.
If anyone thinks for one minute that the kids that have been in and out of Juvi. Detention don't become as wise to the juvi. criminal justice system as the repeat offenders in adult prison, you are dreaming. And if you don't think there isn't buzz on the streets right now among the regular repeaters that TYC is going to be harder and harder to reach you are dreaming. Up until now, that was usually the one thing we had to use to try and keep those on the edge from going completely over. "You mess up one more time, it's no more boot camps or rehabs. Next stop is TYC." You take away the ability to tell a kid that and mean it, what are they going to do or think? How are they going to act? If they know you can't send them to TYC, and they WILL know it when you can't, what are you supposed to do to try and keep them in line? The threat of repurcussions for bad behavior has to be there to prevent / minimize the bad behavior.

Just for grins, I'd like to know how many of you (no details please) have filed adult felony cases on TYC parolees (17 or older)since the beginning of the year?