At five state juvenile detention centers, the day-to-day conditions are relentlessly violent and oppressive, with guards often resorting to force, according to a complaint filed to the Justice Department.
Giddings State School in Giddings, Texas, one of the state's five juvenile detention facilities, on Oct. 14, 2021.
Taken together, the voluminous allegations — by advocacy groups and families, lawsuits filed against the state, news media reports, and investigations at the state level — present a portrait of a terrifying environment inside juvenile prisons in Texas, one that is rife with sexual abuse, violence and severe staffing shortages.
The problems, according to the complaint, have been exacerbated by severe staffing shortages, in part because of officers calling in sick during the coronavirus pandemic. This has led to a lack of supervision, the complaint said, which has allowed violence among the incarcerated children to flourish, as well as violence between staff members and the youths. On any given day, there are between 800 and 900 children in the state’s juvenile centers.
Dennis was horrified when she called one day in 2019 and learned that her son had been beaten and taunted as guards apparently stood by, she said. Her son was sent to the jail’s doctors on one occasion, she said, and she was later told that many guards did not intervene because they were afraid of the youths themselves.
Her son’s experience was included in the complaint filed to the Justice Department. In the complaint, he was identified by the initials “M.C.” and described an environment in which “gangs ran the facility” and put out “hits” on children. Food was frequently stolen, he said, and staffing was so limited that officers resorted to the use of pepper spray to pacify groups of children who were fighting.
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