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Latest news reports indicate that Texas lawmakers are now planning to charge more juveniles with adult crimes, even in the wake of the numerous abuse scandals involving physical and sexual abuse and struggles to keep a minimum number of officers on staff. Reportedly, in the summer of 2022, short-staffing resulted in children being locked up in cells for 23 hours a day and relying on lunch trays and water bottles for toilets. During this time, self-harming behavior skyrocketed amongst imprisoned youth, and almost half of them were placed on suicide watch.

Faced with the decision of whether to close five of the remaining youth prisons and instead focus on rehabilitating youth involved in criminal behavior or spending significant funds to build additional juvenile prisons, lawmakers opted for the latter, setting up a budget of $200 million to build two or three additional juvenile prison facilities to hold another 200 juveniles. Unless the Governor vetoes the measures, they will go into effect of of September of this year. The legislature also passed a provision allowing a number of youth in the prisons to be transferred to the more punitive, harsher adult prison system, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. One teenager has already reportedly committed suicide after being transferred.

Moving Away From Common Sense

This is in stark contrast to Texas following a pattern of moving away from incarcerating juveniles for more than a decade. Up until now, Texas has slowly but surely been turning away from imprisoning juveniles and instead focusing on keeping youth involved in criminal behavior under close supervision, where research indicates results in the best outcomes. As a result, just over the last 15 years, the state of Texas has closed eight prisons, and the imprisoned youth population has shrunk from 5,000 to less than 600 in total.

The bill also requires the agency to come up with a plan to set aside additional resources to keep children closer to home. This is essential, given that juveniles are the most difficult population to provide for due to the presence of mental health needs, violent behavior, and/or sometimes both combined. 

Still, social justice groups have understandably condemned the plan to send more and more youth to adult prisons and build more prisons, describing it as a plan to essentially “throw away” kids with needs. They also point out that there is already a serious understaffing of officers, and this will only exacerbate existing problems.

Fort Worth, Texas, Juvenile Defense Lawyers

With the dire circumstances facing juveniles in Texas prisons, it is absolutely imperative that if they are facing charges, they receive the very best in criminal defense. 

The Carreras Law Group, P.C. is prepared to fight: Contact us today to find out more about our services aggressively defending juvenile clients.