Texas Youth Commission

[Anonymous]

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

http://www.statesman.com/news/content/r ... 29tyc.html


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."
http://www.statesman.com/news/content/r ... /6tyc.html

Nearly 30 years have passed since the four "participant observers" took up residence inside Texas' troubled youth lockups, but Steve Bercu clearly remembers their shocking discovery.
Back then, Bercu was the lead attorney in Morales v. Turman, a federal lawsuit seeking to reform the state's juvenile detention system and end the physical abuse of incarcerated youths that went on there. The observers went in to monitor conditions, with the result that everyone was on his or her best behavior — at first.
"It was incredible. Within days, the culture inside the institutions reverted to what it was before," recalled Bercu, now an executive with BookPeople in Austin. "They were beating kids up, doing bad things just like before, like (the observers) weren't there.
"The culture of the system, an ingrained, entrenched, institutional culture, simply took back over."
That culture is being blamed for yet another scandal that put the Texas Youth Commission back in the spotlight this spring after published reports that allegations of sexual abuse by two administrators at the West Texas State School had been investigated but never prosecuted.
Enraged lawmakers began an inquiry that turned up numerous other reports of abuse and inaction by higher-ups. Gov. Rick Perry named a former aide, Jay Kimbrough, to take charge of the agency.
This week, Kimbrough issued a 35-page report that made 56 specific recommendations aimed at changing an agency he described as "unwilling or incapable of taking action" to fix itself. He declared that the new oversight is already working.
But even as the report was being distributed, there were signs of continuing problems:
•On two recent occasions, legislative investigators have complained of resistance from Youth Commission employees as they carried out audits. At the same time, officials have stopped making reports of abuse public — not to cover them up, they say, but to follow a state law that mandates that those records be kept secret.
•After weeks of headlines about a crackdown on illegal sexual encounters between agency employees and their charges, a halfway house employee in Fort Worth was arrested April 25 after being accused of trying to entice a girl to perform oral sex on him.
•In an April 30 report, health services auditors disclosed that a rape at a state youth lockup had not been properly reported or followed up, amid myriad other problems ranging from delayed treatment to lack of psychiatric care. At a public hearing on Friday, lawmakers were displeased with the news.
Perhaps most telling: Despite vowing to get to the bottom of what went wrong at the agency, despite Kimbrough's finding that the head office failed to do its duty, state officials have stopped short of detailing the extent of malfeasance by individual administrators in Austin. From Perry on down, the mantra is to move on.
"We know what happened. It's time to move forward, and that's what we're doing," said House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, a Richardson Republican who is co-chairman of the special legislative committee empaneled to investigate the scandal. "People are gone. Significant structural changes are being made. This is a major, possibly historic shift in how the agency will do business."
Most of the agency's top officials — more than a dozen in all — have retired, resigned or been fired since the scandal erupted. More than 50 other lower-level workers were cashiered because they were found to have felony records. Nine current and former employees and four youths have been arrested.
Said state Sen. Juan "Chuy" Hinojosa, D-McAllen, an author of the key reform bill: "The old culture operated behind closed doors, swept everything under the rug. The changes will pull the shade up, pull the sheets back. We're going to keep a lot of outside people in TYC's business, people who can blow the whistle about wrongdoing and abuses."
Jobs are at stake
Weeks ago, the West Texas State School in Pyote, about 50 miles west of Odessa, looked like a goner for sure. The site of the sex abuse allegations that sparked the current scandal, it's near the wind-swept town of Monahans (population 6,800), which has a small pool of job applicants and limited social and medical services. The 240-bed unit was targeted weeks ago by state auditors for possible closure.
Legislators at first agreed. But that was before West Texans protested the impending loss of 228 jobs. So the Pyote school may not be closing any time soon. And it's unclear whether the far-flung dispersal of the state's delinquent youths will ever change.
Bercu, the former Morales litigator, said reformers always deemed the remoteness of state schools the most objectionable aspect of the Youth Commission's operation.The two most notorious facilities — Gatesville and Mountain View — were closed in 1974, on orders of U.S. District Judge William Wayne Justice, who determined their brutal culture was beyond repair.
In the conservator's report, Kimbrough laid most of the blame for the agency's "fundamental lack of accountability" on an organizational structure that bred nearly autonomous fiefdoms at isolated outposts while administrators in Austin looked the other way when problems arose.
"What happens there can tend to stay there, and that can let allegations of abuse be covered up," Kimbrough explained in an interview. "That's not a good way to operate any system such as this."
He recommends evaluating all remote youth lockups, with an eye toward moving them nearer to urban areas. That's where most of the incarcerated youths are from and where family and friends can easily visit. And it's where a larger pool of trained staff members and counselors resides.
Two already have been identified in the proposed state budget for conversion to adult prisons: the Marlin Orientation and Assessment Center and the John Shero State Juvenile Correctional Facility in San Saba, both of which began life as adult lockups.
Officials confirmed the latest targets for closure could include the remote Sheffield Boot Camp, 100 miles south of Midland, and the Victory Field Academy near Wichita Falls, a site whose two-story design has drawn complaints that it is unsuited for use as a prison. As a replacement, legislative leaders are privately discussing the possibility of opening a lockup near Houston, home to nearly one in four of the state's incarcerated youths.
Some say the remote lockups have benefits, if they are managed properly.
"The pay for correctional officers is low, but folks can live on that in rural areas. If you moved these facilities to urban areas and didn't raise the pay considerably, you wouldn't be able to hire anyone at all," observed former Republican state Rep. Toby Goodman of Arlington.
"Most all these facilities are remote. They were built there because no one wanted them in their backyard. They still don't. And if the state doesn't have the money to raise (guards') salaries, they don't have the money to move these facilities. That's a fact."
Hinojosa and Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, a Houston Democrat who is co-chairman of the investigating committee with Madden, said lawmakers now want to slow the pace of some changes to measure what works best.
"TYC is coming under sunset review during the next two years," Whitmire explained, "so we have a chance to stay on top of all this as it rolls out."
Still, reform advocates such as Isela Gutierrez, coordinator of the Texas Coalition Advocating Justice for Juveniles, believe that remote institutions have had their day. She noted that other states are abandoning them in favor of regional programs, a stated goal of legislative leaders.
"It's time for Texas to do the same," she said.

[Surfer Mouse]

I forgot to log in when I made the previous post.
Hope people find this a good read.   ::read::

[Anonymous]

More on the Texas Youth Commission:

link to article here
By DOUG J. SWANSON / The Dallas Morning News
dswanson@dallasnews.com

In cold bureaucratic language, the official reports describe lurid acts: High-ranking officials at an isolated state juvenile prison were molesting young male inmates.

Many prison staffers at the West Texas State School complained about the abuse to their immediate bosses and to officials in Austin, the reports say. But, for more than a year, no one in charge did anything to stop it. Evidence was ignored or covered up. Two years after a Texas Rangers investigation concluded, no one has been prosecuted.

Some former employees say similar problems afflict many prisons run by the Texas Youth Commission, whose official mission is to "fix broken children."

 "The TYC has established a dynasty of corruption that condones the mistreatment of youth in its care," said Randal Chance, a retired inspector general for the agency. "Staff are being paid your tax money to rape your children."

TYC Executive Director Dwight Harris said agency officials were stunned when they learned, in 2005, that the Texas Rangers had substantiated charges of abuse at the Pyote facility.

"Quite frankly, it was a shock and a surprise to us that this could ever happen," Mr. Harris said.

But a TYC internal investigation, "Summary Report for Administrative Review," released last week to The Dallas Morning News, said that a West Texas caseworker raised the issue in a letter to Mr. Harris five months before the Rangers' investigation.

"There are definitely places where we had opportunities we missed," said Tim Savoy, TYC spokesman. "We regret doing that."

The reports obtained by The News say the abuse stemmed from a culture in which prison officials were free to abuse their power, punish children who tried to complain about them, and reward those who gave them sexual favors.

The school's principal allegedly lured inmates into sexual acts with offers of birthday cake and promises of help getting into college. The assistant superintendent was accused of sexual contact with several youths.

 Both men bought the silence of young victims by threatening to lengthen their sentences, the investigation says.

After more than a year of quiet complaints within TYC, the situation in Pyote officially came to light in February 2005, when a Texas Ranger sergeant launched an investigation. But the matter received little public notice until recently, when state legislators and news organizations, including The News and The Texas Observer, began asking questions.

Ray Brookins, former assistant superintendent at Pyote, and John Paul Hernandez, former principal, both resigned their jobs in 2005 in lieu of termination. Each earned about $58,000 a year at the state school.

 Mr. Brookins, 41, who lives in Austin, declined to comment.

Mr. Hernandez, 41, asked if he committed the acts described in the reports, said, "Oh, absolutely not." He said he was declining further comment on the advice of his lawyer.

Until last week Mr. Hernandez was the principal of the Richard Milburn Academy, a charter school in Midland. On Thursday, he was placed on paid leave pending an investigation.

The top official at the Pyote facility for much of the time under investigation was Lemuel "Chip" Harrison, the superintendent.

TYC's inspector general said Mr. Harrison received repeated reports of wrongdoing, but those reports were "not properly reported and not addressed with documented supervisory intervention by Mr. Harrison."

Mr. Harrison was put on probation for 90 days as a result. But he was subsequently promoted to director of juvenile corrections for TYC.

He told The News on Saturday that he had not seen the TYC report, but, "I don't know of anybody who ever covered up anything."

Mr. Harrison said that he was told only once of Mr. Brookins having youths in his office late at night and that he counseled the assistant superintendent to stop. "Nobody ever came out and said this man is doing something wrong with these kids, that this man is abusing these kids," Mr. Harrison said.

The cases involving Mr. Brookins and Mr. Hernandez were referred to federal authorities, who declined to prosecute. But Ward County District Attorney Randall Reynolds said recently that the state cases involving Mr. Brookins and Mr. Hernandez are pending. He declined to say if he would present them to a grand jury.

TYC houses the state's young offenders, ages 10 to 21, who are considered the most dangerous, incorrigible or chronic. "They have often already failed at any number of intervention attempts," the agency says. "The biggest challenge is to teach youth how to succeed."

Some get a different sort of lesson. Since 2000, more than 90 employees at TYC facilities – some of them contractors – have been disciplined or fired for sexual misconduct with inmates.

Such contact can be a state felony, punishable by up to two years in prison.

TYC officials say they do not track prosecutions of employees accused of sexual misconduct. A review by The News of the staffers disciplined by TYC found that five had been convicted of lesser charges related to sexual misconduct. All received probation or deferred adjudication. None went to prison.

 The West Texas State School, surrounded by desert, was originally part of a World War II airfield known as the Rattlesnake Bomber Base. It covers 52 acres along Interstate 20 between Midland and Pecos. About 250 male inmates are held there.

Reports by the TYC's investigators paint a picture of multiple, frequent and poorly hidden sexual conduct by staff with inmates in Pyote.

A "Recommendation to Terminate Employment" said of Mr. Hernandez: "While in a classroom storage closet, you gave [name deleted] some cake that you bought him for his birthday. ...You then made sexual overtures to him, turned out the lights, masturbated him and performed fellatio on him."

One young inmate, said the TYC findings, "reports that on numerous other occasions (18 times in total, according to the youth) ... you took him to an empty classroom storage closet or bathroom, or to your office, and performed fellatio on him."

'Behind locked doors'

Monroe Elms, former assistant principal of the school, told The News he found Mr. Hernandez "behind locked doors with students" more than once.

Mr. Elms said he informed Mr. Harrison, the superintendent. "I said, 'Mr. Harrison, I've caught John Paul behind locked doors several times with these kids. I want to report it to you,' " Mr. Elms recalled. "He said, 'What did you do about it?' He was throwing it back on me."

Employees also complained about Mr. Brookins, telling supervisors that he often took youth to his office after midnight and shut the door.

"Brookins would come get the kids in the middle of the night," said Christal Taylor, a former guard at one of the Pyote dorms. "He wouldn't bring them back until 1 in the morning.

"I said, 'Where are you taking them?' " Ms. Taylor told The News. "He'd say, 'That's none of your business. ... I'm the supervisor.' "

 Other staffers made similar complaints regarding Mr. Brookins, the TYC administrative review says. The assistant superintendent "was reported to have been peering in dorm windows late at night ... He was also know to take youth riding to the ball field on a golf cart, after hours and alone."

Mr. Brookins began his TYC career at the San Saba State School. There, in 2001, he was disciplined after "photos of naked men and women with their genitalia exposed" were found on his state computer, the TYC review said.

"In hindsight, we should have fired Ray Brookins when they first found pornography on his computer," said TYC spokesman Savoy.

Instead, he was promoted to the West Texas State School in 2003. TYC executive director Harris said agency officials failed to check Mr. Brookins' personnel records when he was hired in Pyote.

The agency has since changed its promotions procedures to include the checking of personnel records, Mr. Harris said.

 The TYC's administrative review said of Mr. Brookins' promotion: "In spite of the presence of indicators of risk of misconduct, a history of misconduct, widespread suspicion of misconduct and reports of unusual behavior, Mr. Brookins was placed in positions of great responsibility."

The review also found: "The youths victimized by Mr. Brookins and Mr. Hernandez were apparently influenced to remain silent by the control the two had over their length of stay and services that could be provided after release."

Superintendent Harrison "failed to report allegations of abuse," the review said. And it found that complaints "were explained away by Mr. Brookins when investigated, or the evidence of misconduct covered up."

For several months in 2004, Mr. Brookins served as acting superintendent while Mr. Harrison was on medical leave. Then, the report says, Mr. Brookins "began interfering with the youth complaint process."

An administrative assistant told investigators that Mr. Brookins "demanded and was given access to keys to the youth complaint mailbox."

Retired inspector general Chance, who has written a book on TYC, called  Raped by the State, said cover-ups and the stifling of complaints are common within the agency. "It's widespread," he said, "and management knows about it."

TYC executive director Harris defended the agency. "TYC is a haven for committed, dedicated employees who work 12-hour shifts and put their lives on the line," he said.

State Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, questioned Mr. Harris about the Pyote investigation during a recent Senate committee hearing. Sen. Hinojosa has introduced a bill that would provide greater oversight of TYC.

His bill would allow the Texas Rangers to make unannounced visits to each TYC prison at least once a month. "We want the Texas Rangers to come in and do inspections and do reports of what they found," Sen. Hinojosa said.

His bill also would beef up the TYC's investigative force. "They have some real serious problems," he said.

TIMELINE

August 1999: Ray Brookins is hired by the Texas Youth Commission at San Saba State School.

March 2001: Mr. Brookins receives a 90-day probation for having pornography on his state computer.

October 2003: Mr. Brookins is promoted to director of security at West Texas State School.

November 2003: John Paul Hernandez is hired as principal at West Texas State School.

December 2003: Staff members begin complaining about Mr. Brookins taking youth out of dorms alone after hours.

May 2004: Mr. Brookins is promoted to assistant superintendent.

June 2004: Complaints continue about Mr. Brookins taking youth away alone after hours.

June 2004: An assistant principal complains of finding Mr. Hernandez in dark, locked classrooms alone with youth after hours.

August 2004: A caseworker sends a letter complaining about Mr. Brookins to the executive director of TYC. An investigator finds no evidence of wrongdoing by Mr. Brookins, and the caseworker is chastised for complaining.

January 2004: A nude picture identified as "Ray Brookins, Administrator, Pyote, Texas" is found on an Internet sex club site. A TYC staffer finds pornography on Mr. Brookins' home computer.

February 2005: A TYC volunteer reports suspicions of sexual abuse to the Texas Rangers. An investigation by the Rangers follows.

February 2005: Mr. Brookins resigns from TYC. Mr. Hernandez is suspended. He later resigns.

SOURCE: Texas Youth Commission