Youth Commission changes course on older offenders
Agency head says 19- and 20-year-olds will stay in youth system.
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Wednesday, September 26, 2007
After three months of wrangling over the proposed transfer of more than 150 19- and 20-year-old offenders to adult corrections programs, Texas Youth Commission officials on Tuesday said they have decided to keep more than half of them in youth lockups.
It was the first public indication that keeping those offenders in Youth Commission lockups was even an option. In May, the Legislature ended the troubled agency's jurisdiction over the older offenders.
 Jay Janner/AMERICAN-STATESMAN Dimitria Pope said lawmakers were told of new plan; one disputes that. |
Since then, the issue has sparked a headline-grabbing controversy over whether to transfer the youths to adult parole programs and prisons and whether their names and other details should be disclosed in the interest of public safety.
On Tuesday, Dimitria Pope, the agency's acting executive director, announced that 79 of 159 older offenders will be kept in agency lockups, and another 40 will remain on Youth Commission parole.
Only 24 will be transferred to adult parole, and eight are being referred to judges for re-sentencing to an adult prison, she said. Another eight have been released because they turned 21.
In June, Youth Commission officials proposed transferring about 130 of what was then 156 offenders to adult parole and 17 to adult prisons. No decision had been made about what to do with the rest.
By late August, Pope was telling a legislative committee that the agency had a plan to get all of the older offenders out of Youth Commission custody — and that most would go to into the adult system.
Pope said Tuesday that lawmakers had been briefed on the agency's new decision.
But House Corrections Committee Chairman Jerry Madden, an author of the law and co-chairman of a special legislative committee overseeing Youth Commission reforms, disputed that.
"I have not been briefed by anyone ... and I can tell you that our legislative intent was to get the 19- and 20-year-olds out of TYC facilities," Madden said. "I have no idea how they've come up with this. I continue to be surprised and amazed by some decisions out there."
New details disclosed by the Youth Commission on Tuesday show that nearly all the older offenders are serving time for violent and aggravated crimes, including robbery, assault, sexual assault, capital murder and manslaughter.
Pope said the decision to keep most of the offenders in Youth Commission custody was made so they can continue in treatment programs.
Asked why some youths were still being transferred to adult parole and prison if her agency could legally retain custody, Pope said the cases were decided on an individual basis by a Youth Commission review panel and signed off on by the attorney general's office. She gave no further details.
In June, after the law took effect, Youth Commission officials had moved to transfer all 19- and 20-year-olds from their custody because, as they insisted at the time, lawmakers had removed their jurisdiction to continue holding them. Sponsors of Senate Bill 103 said that the older offenders had no place mingling with younger offenders — and that rehabilitation and discipline in youth prisons could be improved with them gone.
Pope cited an Aug. 8 letter from Eric Nichols, deputy assistant attorney general for criminal justice, that she said gave her agency permission to continue holding the 19- and 20-year-olds. Just weeks ago, the same letter was being quoted by lawmakers to bolster their argument that the same offenders should leave the Youth Commission.
Nichols could not be reached for comment on his intent. But Tom Kelly, a spokesman for Attorney General Greg Abbott, said "the letter is still valid. ... It speaks for itself."
Senate Criminal Justice Committee Chairman John Whitmire, Madden's co-chairman on the special committee, said that although the goal of the new law "was to get the 19- and 20-year-olds out ... I support the agency's decision to do this."
"Coming out of the legislative session, there was a drumbeat to get them all out as quickly as possible, but now I think the AG's office has given them an alternative," Whitmire said. "The agency is in a position to know best what to do."
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