Texas’ juvenile prison system is nearing total collapse.
and provided emergency funding and Texas Rangers to further investigate criminal behavior among staff.In recent years, a new focus on keeping kids in trouble closer to home and a drop in juvenile arrests have led to far fewer kids being sent to a shrinking number of state-run prisons, a feat celebrated by both juvenile justice advocates and state leaders.
Amy Mason’s 17-year-old son has been at the Giddings Unit, about 60 miles east of Austin, for about a year. She said he no longer can get out of his cell on weekends to call her or, sometimes, even use the bathroom. Having to more often resort to basic supervision of teens without additional programming or activities has raised not only suicidal behavior but aggressive tendencies, which in turn leads to even more employees quitting, according toThe result is a lack of control over the workforce. Employees regularly skip their shifts, knowing the agency would be hard pressed to fire them, officials reported at an advisory council meeting.
“The instability, lack of safety, and low morale causes significant churn of new hires, furthering the crisis,” she said via email. “Frustration and fatigue run high which can contribute to staff making poor decisions. A lack of necessary staff also decreases peer monitoring that comes naturally when a full team is working together. This can increase opportunities for predatory staff to engage in abuse or exploitation.
The agency was able to make permanent the emergency 15% pay raise implemented in April for all officers, bumping starting annual salaries up from around $36,200 a year to $41,700. Before the raise, Carter said, the entry-level pay for an officer at Giddings was comparable to working at the nearby Buc-ee’s as a cashier.In the last few months, agency officials say they have been able to “stanch the bleeding” of officers fleeing the job.
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