Texas may shutter some juvenile prisons with push to shift kids closer to home

Photo: Johnny Hanson, Staff Juvenile justice advocates and experts say any plan to ship teen...

If everything goes as planned, Texas could shutter some of its state-run juvenile prisons over the next five years, according to Camille Cain, the newly installed executive director of the troubled Texas Juvenile Justice Department.

"We have to start looking at what the Texas model is," Cain told the Chronicle in an interview Monday. "Smaller facilities, closer to home for as many kids as that is appropriate for is the ultimate goal."

The former criminal justice division director for Gov. Greg Abbott, Cain was seen by some as an unexpected choice to lead the agency through its recovery from the turmoil of an ongoing sex abuse scandal that broke last year, when a number of officers were accused of having sex or trying to have sex with teenaged inmates.

Even as Texas Rangers continue probing the allegations, the state's juvenile justice system is juggling staffing shortages, a new board chair, the unexpected ouster of the agency watchdog, and a series of officer arrests.

And while Cain may have the governor's confidence, the emergence of new leadership has sparked speculation among juvenile justice advocates who wonder what her plans are for the troubled agency.

Currently, TJJD oversees roughly 1,000 kids in the state's five secure facilities scattered across the state, primarily in rural areas. But that could be changing.

"I think that the plan that everyone has believed in for a long time, (is) the concept of closer to home combined with a clear design that would seek to reduce recidivism and therefore increase public safety," she said.

That approach is what a coalition of juvenile justice reformers advocated for last year in a letter pushing for the closure of state-run juvenile lock-ups. It's what the Chronicle editorial board pushed for in a December editorial. And it's along the lines of what Gov. Scott Walker is planning to do in Wisconsin.

At this point, though, it's not entirely clear how that would play out here in Texas.

"I think when I am talking to advocates, when I'm talking to probation chiefs, when I'm talking to experts and others, the final design of what all that looks like, and what TJJD looks like after that reform is complete is similar in philosophy and different in detail," Cain said.

But however it happens, would a closer-to-home shift mean the end of some of the larger, prison-style state lock-ups?

"I can't say absolutely yes or absolutely no right now but it stands to reason that it would be a likely outcome as we are moving some of the kids closer to home," Cain said. "I think everyone agrees on that one. It's which kids that are the question and in what order."

The new director stressed that the possibility of closing state facilities is not "in concrete" but could come as an outgrowth of pursuing "right-minded" approaches to boosting public safety and lowering recidivism. And in any case, it's likely to take four to five years to see through, she said.

But the problem facing the state right now doesn't just lie in managing the youth; it's also about managing the officers - or lack of them. The understaffed agency has been a revolving door of late, with roughly 60 percent of new hires quitting in the first year.

While the state's adult prison system has chosen to attract new officers by upping starting salaries, Cain said she doesn't think that same approach will necessarily be effective on the juvenile side.

"If you don't feel safe at work, if you don't feel supported, if you are worried about being there then there's almost no amount of money that will fix it," Cain said. "I think for some people, the folks who've been around a while who might just be thinking about leaving for better jobs, money could be the answer. For the 60 percent of people who quit in the first year, I don't think money is the deal because they knew the salary when they took it."

However, she acknowledged there is now a growing wage gap between starting officers at TJJD and those coming aboard in the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, which oversees adult prisons. With just a few weeks on the job, Cain said she hasn't yet had the chance to scour the budget closely enough to figure out whether a salary hike could be in the works.

She also hasn't fully decided whether the agency might see more high-level turnover, a possibility that has sparked weeks of speculation and rumor among staff and outside advocates.

"I will not put that rumor to rest," Cain said. "I am assessing the situation."