By Bill Bush, The Washington Post, October 25, 2021
The Department of Justice recently announced a civil rights investigation into widespread reports of “physical and sexual abuse by staff and other residents, excessive use of chemical restraints and excessive use of isolation” in five youth prisons operated by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department. Citing reports that 11 staff members had been arrested on suspicion of sexually abusing youths, spokeswoman Kristen Clarke described “reports of youths being choked, body-slammed, pepper-sprayed and kicked,” as well as two “apparent suicides” of youths in custody.
This investigation comes on the heels of a similar scandal 15 years ago. Despite the sweeping changes that followed, children in Texas youth prisons remain at risk of abuse. In fact, abuse has been the hallmark of these institutions for more than 130 years, despite many efforts at reform. That’s because the prison itself, and the dynamics it fosters, forms the basis for abuse, and unless we rethink the use of youth prisons entirely, it will continue.
Opened in the 19th and early 20th centuries, Texas’s youth prisons were once known as “reform schools” or “training schools.” Like their adult counterparts, these large facilities were in rural areas far from the urban communities that most “juvenile delinquents” called home. This differed little from other states, which also opened juvenile training schools in isolated places, with little funding or oversight, in response to rising youth populations in fast-growing industrial cities. Progressive-era reformers believed incarcerating delinquent youths in rural areas removed them from bad influences and ensured public safety.
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