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Hello and welcome to the Texas Tribune trip

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00:00:55,960 --> 00:01:00,719
Cast for May one, twenty twenty
three. We're coming at you days late

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as I returned from some time away
from work. My name is Matthew Watkins,

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Managing editor of News and Politics for
the Tribune. This week, I'm

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joined by our criminal justice reporter,
Jolie McCullough. Hey, Jolie, Hey,

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thanks for joining us today. We
are going to talk about the state's

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troubled juvenile justice process, a topic
that has come up on this show before

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but has kind of resurfaced in the
news due to information about you know,

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children being transferred from tjj D,
the state's criminal juvenile justice agency, to

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adult prisons, particularly the case of
Joshua Keith Beasley, who recently died by

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suicide in one of those adult facilities. A kind of warning ahead of time

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for listeners, this story might at
times veer into, you know, somewhat

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graphic descriptions of violence or or suicide. So um, you know, if

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you are not comfortable hearing that,
you this maybe an episode you you to

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skip. But Jolie, you know, you had a very powerful story last

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week on this topic. We've talked
a little bit about the problems at tjj

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D before, but for those who
might not have heard that, I think

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maybe we should start by just kind
of summing up, you know, what

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we had already known about this agency
and the problems it was facing, particularly

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last year. Yeah, so last
year, the Texas General Justice Department tjj

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D, UM it's five prison it's
five youth prisons around the state. They

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were struggling with severe understaffing, like
historical levels of short staffing. For months,

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they had less than fifty percent of
their officer roles filled. And this

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kind of had a you know,
as one would expect, negative impact on

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the youth in these detention facilities.
UM, children were locked in their cells

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or up to twenty three hours a
day. UM. And in many cases

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these are cells where it's very small, just kind of a concrete slab with

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a mattress, a thin mattress on
top. There are no toilets in these

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cells. So there were children using
water bottles, they were using lunch trees

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as makeshift toilets. UM. They
were not getting to go to class for

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education time. They were getting work
packets instead handed to them on their dorms

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or in their cells. And this
UM, during this time, we saw

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self harm behavior among the youth's skyrocket
UM. More and more youth were hurting

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themselves. UM. There were some
spikes at some of the facilities, of

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assaults on staff as well. UM. And this was just it was just

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UM. The agency itself said it
was. It was near total collapse.

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UM. This was as big as
an emergency. They could even be calling

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for themselves. They were just they
were really struggling and the kids were hurting

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because of it. Let's let's take
a step back very quickly and because help

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people kind of understand how, how
and why this agency exists and how it

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compares to the adult criminal justice system. What is the difference between someone going

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through I mean aside from their age
of course, someone going through the you

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know, juvenile justice system compared to
what you might experience if you're a you

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know, twenty three year old convicted
of a felony going going to a state

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prison or something like that, or
seventeen year old in Texas. UM.

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Yeah, So basically what we see
here is there's been a lot of changes

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with how we've handled juvenile justice in
the last fifteen years or so. Given

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that you know, these the Youth
Justice Agency never really seems to be able

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to climb out of crisis. It's
kind of always in a state of turmoil,

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just with spikes of intensity with that, which is what we I saw

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last year. UM. And so
what we've seen more and more over the

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last decade or and change is that
generally speaking, when a child is um

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you know, commits a crime,
they are intended to be kept as like

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as as shallow in the system as
possible. So generally speaking, they're meant

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to be handled on the local level
with local probation departments in cases where maybe

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they just have not been able to
get the services they need at the local

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level, or the crime is um
is so violent that they are unable to

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be adequately watched at the local level. They the last resort is meant to

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be these juvenile prisons, these five
prisons across the state. And so right

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now there's in for the last year
and change, there's been fewer than six

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hundred youth in these five facilities,
and they to be there, you have

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to have committed a felony. Um. And generally speaking, you're the local

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officials have deemed that they can't help
you at the on their end, either

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because of violent behavior, severe mental
health needs oftentimes both. Um. So

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that's kind of where we're at in
terms of what these facilities are and who

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they're meant to handle and are we
is it a more rehabilitative process than you

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would see in the adult prisons too? I mean, is is there a

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different kind of philosophy or approach to
how the people are treated in these Yeah.

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So the thing with youth, the
youth prisons, they are meant to

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be rehabilitative, they are meant to
be treatment based. Um. Like you

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know, obviously public safety being a
factor as well. But nowhere in like

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their mission statement, like in their
in their description of themselves, nowhere does

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a safe punitive, whereas you know, the adult prison system, there's you

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know, discussions of like re entry
and abilitation, but the main point of

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it is public safety and punishment.
Right You're being punished for the crime that

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you have committed. And so it's
they're incredibly different, just you know,

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from the from the studs, from
the foundation, they're meant to handle these

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things differently. Now, obviously,
when you get to short staffing and you

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end up having these kids in severe
isolation a lot, the way that it's

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changes in practice is obviously different.
But the intention here is this is a

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rehabilitative environment. This is a treatment
based environment versus the adult system, which

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is a punitive environment. Okay,
So with that in mind, you bring

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up in your story and we have
written separately as well about the case of

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Joshua Keith Beasley. Tell us about
him and what he went through. Yeah,

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So Joshua Keith Beasley Jr. And
this was actually written by a freelancer,

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Lisa Armstrong. She wrote about him
last year year when we had our

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bigger story about how what we talked
about earlier, how t JJD was nearing

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total collapse, she had a story
on him. Essentially, this is a

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child who was struggling since early childhood
with behavioral issues with you know, mental

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health issues, and at age eleven, was deemed that the best the best

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solution for him was to be put
into a t JJD prison. So this

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is a child who at age eleven, he was originally on probation for vandalism

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and then after kicking a school safety
officer in violation of that probation, he

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was sent to a youth prison.
In there, he deteriorated. He had

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countless, countless episodes of self harm
during the pandemic when visitation was halted,

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he wasn't able to see his mom
anymore. He was hospitalized about a dozen

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times for self harm behavior within less
than two years. And then obviously there

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were instances where this is a child
was severe mental health needs. He would

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have some violent outbursts at times.
So eventually what happened to him was he

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in September of last year, was
transferred to the adult prison system, essentially

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because at age sixteen, he had
been you know, charged with the crime

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of assaulting an officer in in the
youth prison. So he had hit,

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he hit, hit and spit at
an officer, and that crime can make

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you eligible to be if you've had
multiple crimes at this point, it can

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make you eligible to be transferred up
to the adult system. And so after

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age sixteen, so essentially he turned
sixteen and d J J d UM you

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know, pushed him up to the
adult prison system seemingly, you know,

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as as they've said, like they
thought it's the best decision for him,

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given that he wasn't succeeding UM in
the youth prison system. And within six

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months he was found UM in his
cell at a psychiatric prison and at the

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adult psychiatric prison, and he he
died by suicide UM six months after he

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was transferred up at age sixteen.
Still, so it's just a tragic story

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of just a youth entering the system
at a very young age, struggling with

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mental health issues throughout it, and
shortly after he was sent up to the

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adult prison system, reportedly he took
his life. Let's pause from it.

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dot Org. Okay, Sually, we

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highlighted this story because it's an individually
tragic story, but also, as you

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have reported, it is an example, a very tragic example of a practice

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that has become more common in the
past year by t JJD, the practice

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of transferring juveniles under the age of
seventeen two adult prisons. Tell us why

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is that happening? Yeah, so
it depends. I mean, essentially,

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as we've said, right, t
JJD was in this crisis. They as

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the years have gone by, they
have narrowed down their population to generally the

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most difficult population to deal with.
Right, these are the most high needs

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youth they have either for behavioral issues
or mental health or both. As I

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said earlier, So this is a
generally, generally speaking, a difficult population

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to work with. T JJD has
said that in the last the increase in

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transfers, which for context, there
were fifty one transfers last year of youth

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up to the adult prison system.
And you know, again, out of

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less than six hundred youth and the
year before, in twenty twenty one,

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there were twenty nine of those fifty
one twelve of them were sixteen or seventeen,

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compared to five of them being that
age in twenty one. So this

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is a big jump. Um.
Obviously, it's small numbers of any of

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these youths because the TJJD system is
meant to handle a few youth but it's

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a big percentage, and it's a
big jump, and it's a big change.

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And so basically what we saw was
the youth the youth justice system was

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you know, at its just struggling
to survive at this point. UM,

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they were scrambling to recruit and to
retain more officers. And you know,

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one of the one of the biggest
complaints of officers who are leaving is the

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work conditions, the you know,
the dangerous conditions that can come with this

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job. So in in this in
this world, they're increasing transfers. T

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JJD has said because more more youth
are being committed with with um after having

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after having committed violent offenses. So
there's like a more the population itself,

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they're arguing is more violent. But
you also hear from some of the lawyers

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who represent these children at these transfer
hearings, and they're saying there there are

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instances where you see like Joshua Keith
Beasley, who yes he has was found

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to have hid an officer. But
it's very like, it's very clear that

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this is a child with severe mental
health issues and he's hurting himself a lot

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as well. And you also don't
know how severe any of these incidents are.

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For example, I know there's been
situations where officers are grievously wounded,

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um. You know, they might
be end up in the hospital after after

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an assault from the youth. But
there's other instances that I've heard of,

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you know, a child resisting being
restrained or pushed into their cell and in

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that resist during that like resistance UM, an officer you know might fall down

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um or you know, sprain their
wrist um. And these are the same

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types of cases that you're seeing that
are that youth that are being pushed up

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to the adult system. What needs
to happen? How do they how do

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they do that? Is it getting
permission from a judge? Yes, So

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there's only so many youth who are
eligible, right, and so there are

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two ways that one enters the juvenile
prisons, and one is you're either on

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a determinate sentence where you've committed a
crime that they that you've been found generally

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speaking, it's one of there's a
list of crimes that it can be generally

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serious violent offenses for example, murder, aggravated robbery, things like that,

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and you've been found in court to
say, okay, it's a juvenile court

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still, but you are sentenced to
stay up to it can be up to

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forty years. So say there's a
child committed of aggravated robbery. He gets

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a twenty year sentence, but he's
only you know, fifteen, and then

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before he turns nineteen is when he
ages out of the youth system. Then

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there's another hearing where that same court
decides, okay, do you serve the

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rest of the sentence in prison and
the adult prison or do you go now

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onto parole. And that's largely based
on how well you have been seemingly how

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well you've done in the youth prison
system. The other way is for youth

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that youth more youth go into the
youth prison system having committed crimes that they're

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never supposed to enter the adults system, right, they're lower level felonies and

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or they've just gotten lesser sentences,
so they're supposed to be there at the

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youth prison system for between at least
nine months in two years, and then

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after that it's really just up to
tjj officials to say, you know what,

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Yes, you've completed all the treatment
we have on this and you're you're

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doing well, so you can go
now, and you're just you're done.

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But if you commit another crime within
t JJD, you can become eligible for

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that other offense, and then you're
now on You're now able to be TJD

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is now able to request this transfer, which again has to go before the

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juvenile court judge who in almost every
case approves the transfer. And essentially what

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you're talking about here, and you
have in your story of advocates sort of

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making this point right where you have
the agency, you know, making the

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argument that this child is too dangerous
to be held in the youth facilities for

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whatever reason, committing you know,
crimes danger to the staff or other children

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as well. They need to go
up to a adult system where there might

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you know, be fewer services available
to help them. But you have the

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advocates kind of coming back and saying, well, part of the reason they

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have gotten to this point is because
they've been in a facility and an agency

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where things are making it worse.
You know, we talk about them this

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this individual story, you know,
where a kid is, you know,

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starting to do self harm after he's
been unable to see his family from visitations.

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Um. You know, all different
kind of people being isolated in their

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cells, having to use the rest
bathroom, in water bottles and lunch trays

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because they can't you leave their cells
because of staffing issues and everything like that.

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And so like this kind of like
you know, like vicious spiral right

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where you go to an agency that
may make it worse than your mental health

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crises, which then the agency says, because you're showing these this behavior in

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part due to mental health crises,
you need to go to a facility that

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might be more dangerous or might have
fewer services for you. It just seems

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like it's a not a not a
great situation in that realm, and it's

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not. It's a horrible situation all
around. Um. And you know,

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advocates have argued that this is this
is you know t JJD saying this is

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how we're having to move the most
disruptive youth so the other youth in our

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facilities can thrive. Advocates saying this
is a way essentially to throw kids away

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um and to you know, to
kick the can down the road, UM,

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make it somebody else's problem. And
it's it's you know, tragic to

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hear of these situations and where where
this is happening, especially with kids like

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Joshua UM. And it's just you
know, in t DCJ, like one

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of the arguments being well, they
have a youthful offender program. There are

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currently or as of last month,
there were thirty four UM people under eighteen

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who were in the adult prison system
and they're supposed to they have a program

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four you know, their inmates under
eighteen, and it's meant to be you

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know, to have more services like
education, UM and treatment, but jet

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you know, in the in the
grand scheme of things, t TCJ is

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also always struggling with staffing UM.
And there you know, Joshua ended up

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in a psychiatric prison because he had
he had hurt himself again once in the

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adult prison system. They sent him
to a psychiatric unit. And what you

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saw, according to TDCJ, who
is now moving to fire UM seven employees

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at that unit. They there was
a level quote level of complacency um U

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quote that was essentially unacceptable. They
weren't checking on this on this child as

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much as they were supposed to be
UM Whereas, like you know, in

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in t jj D on if if
the youth is on suicide watch, essentially

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they're being checked on every you know, three to ten minutes at most UM

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and TDCJ said this youth was supposed
to be checked on every fifteen minutes,

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and then that wasn't happening. So
you just get into these really like it's

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a different it's just a different environment
and it's meant for different types of people.

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And you see t DCJ generally has
a large number of suicides every year,

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so this is something that has kind
of been baked into, like you

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know, there is just some accepted
level of suicides. But when it's a

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sixteen year old who was never originally
meant to go into the adult system in

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the first place, I mean,
it's just it's it's hard to it's just

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it's really it's really tragic. Yeah, I mean, and we just have

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this situation we were in a legislative
session right now. There's a lot of

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focus and attention on child you know, the welfare of children, the safety

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of children in this session, and
it just like you keep seeing these reminders,

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whether it's the problems with the state's
foster care agency, the Juvenile Justice

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agency that you know, one of
the most dangerous places to be a kid

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in Texas is under the custody or
responsibility of the State of Texas. And

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of course, you know, you
could argue, and you know it should

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be noted in that situation that there's
somewhat of a you know, cause and

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effect question there, right of course, because you know, these agencies are

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designed for kids who are at risk
and having problems, but they're just continues

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to be evidence that the state is
not doing a good job of taking care

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of the children it's supposed to be
taking care of. But speaking of that

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legislative session, what's happening, you
know, we have less than a month

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left in that session. Is there
any momentum, any action being taken to

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address some of these problems that you've
highlighted. Well, so one of the

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things that we that I focus on
in the stories, there is actually a

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move in the legislative such in the
legislature by the Texas Senate to to pass

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legislation that would an all likelihood increase
the number of transfers of youth from t

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JJD to the adult prison system.
One of which, so both of these

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bills have already passed the Senate and
WAND is the major sunset bill, which

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is essentially, you know, every
ten years at least every state agency goes

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under review and lawmakers decide how if
it should continue to exist, and so

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you have to pass this bill or
else t JJD would just cease to exist.

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It's one of those must pass bills. So in that bill from the

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Senate side, there was what language
that would essentially move more it would move

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more t JJD detainees to the adult
system, essentially saying you become eligible for

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like that tg g D. It's
hard for me to say that tjj must

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require like it takes away their discretion. It must request a transfer hearing for

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anyone in their facilities over sixteen who
has been found to have assaulted a police

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a peace officer, which is their
prison officers. So that is a situation

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where t JJD. Now you know, again, if I push back when

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I'm being restrained. They have the
discretion to say like, Okay, we're

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not going to like this is a
this is a reaction to something that's going

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on with you, but it's not
so aggressive that we need to transfer you

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to the adult prison system. And
it would take away that discretion to make

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it go before the judge. Another
another bill that has passed the Senate,

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and some of its language would essentially
make more youth eligible for transfer. So

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right now you have to commit one
of certain crimes or having multiple felonies to

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be eligible for this transfer. And
this would say, um, way more,

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way more. It would open it
up to be way more crimes that

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would make you eligible, including a
single assault against a prison officers. So

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it would likely increase these transfers.
And it's unclear it hasn't moved one of

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the one of the bills hasn't moved
in the House, and the Sunset Bill

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is actually reworked in the House committee
to take that language out. So it's

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really unclear how these things are going
to pan out the rust to session.

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But on the Senate side, at
least there is bipartisan agreement that there needs

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to be more, more pathways to
tea from t JJD to t DCJ because

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they're saying t JJD is so is
just so overburdened. All right, Well,

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it's something that we will be closely
watching over the next month. Thank

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you Jolie for joining us, and
thank you for reporting on this. Thank

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you to our producer Justin, and
thank you for our sponsors, the Texas

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00:26:03,680 --> 00:26:08,920
Medical Association, Raise Your Hand,
Texas Texans Care for Children, and Texas

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00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:14,920
Conference for Women. We'll talk to
you all again later this week. You

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00:26:12,519 --> 00:26:23,799
have to join us on May night
in Midland and online for a conversation with

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00:26:23,920 --> 00:26:29,160
experts about water infrastructure in Texas and
what it will take to keep the state's

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00:26:29,200 --> 00:26:33,640
water safely flowing. Rs VP at
Texas Tribune dot org, slash events