Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke Delivers Remarks Announcing Findings in Statewide Civil Rights Investigation of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department

Remarks as Prepared for Delivery

Good afternoon. My name is Kristen Clarke, Assistant Attorney General for Civil Rights at the U.S. Department of Justice. I am joined today by U.S. Attorney Esparza for the Western District of Texas, U.S. Attorney Diggs for the Eastern District of Texas, U.S. Attorney Hamdani for the Southern District of Texas and U.S. Attorney Simonton for the Northern District of Texas.

We are here today to announce that the Justice Department has completed a thorough investigation of five juvenile justice facilities for children run by the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, also known as TJJD.

Children are committed to TJJD facilities to receive treatment and rehabilitation so that they may return to their communities as law-abiding, productive citizens. Our investigation provides reasonable cause to believe that, far from achieving those objectives, TJJD engaged in a pattern of abuse, deprivation of essential services and disability-related discrimination that seriously harms children and undermines their rehabilitation, all in violation of their rights under the Constitution, the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act and the Americans with Disabilities Act.

We have prepared a comprehensive report of our findings, which we have shared with Texas officials and made public. Our report lays bare our conclusions and rationale and identifies measures needed to bring about critical change. It covers conditions at five Texas facilities: Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg, Gainesville State School in Gainesville, Giddings State School in Giddings, McClennan County State Juvenile Correctional Facility in Mart and Ron Jackson State Juvenile Correctional Complex in Brownwood.

The report we issue today details the abuse that children in TJJD’s facilities face:

• The staff in these facilities use excessive force, including physical force and pepper spray, which often results in injuries to children. We found that staff pepper spray children as a first response to behavior that should have been addressed without force — such as when a staff member pepper sprayed a child for slamming a washing machine door; and when other staff members goaded a child and then pepper sprayed her for threatening to harm herself.
• TJJD also subjects children to prolonged periods in isolation. Children routinely spend days or weeks locked alone in their cells without programming, education or anything to pass the time. These conditions understandably leave children feeling hopeless and desperate. This despair leads some children to resist going back inside their cells, resulting in staff using force on them. For example, one child we discuss in our findings wound up in the infirmary with injuries resulting from staff’s use of force when he refused to go to his room for the rest of the day — at 11:30 a.m. Such isolation also carries a high risk of psychiatric harms, including hallucinations, paranoia, depression, anxiety, self-harm and suicide.
• And our investigation revealed a persistent pattern of sexual abuse. In many incidents, TJJD staff — the very people charged with keeping children safe — are the abusers.

In addition to these horrific conditions, we found that TJJD deprives children of mental health treatment and special education services, which undermines children’s rehabilitation and sets them up to fail, both within the facilities and longer term.

Finally, for the first time, our report today makes clear that the Americans with Disabilities Act requires states to provide children with disabilities in juvenile justice facilities the supports and services they need to complete required programming and go home. TJJD’s failure to provide these supports and services discriminates against children with disabilities in violation of the ADA. This discrimination prolongs some children’s time in TJJD’s custody and sends others down a pipeline to prison.

TJJD estimates that about 85% of children in its secure facilities have high or moderate mental health needs requiring treatment. At least a third are eligible for special education services. Indeed, TJJD has described its current population as having “the highest concentration of acute needs in the history of the agency.”

Yet when these children exhibit challenging behaviors related to their disabilities, TJJD does not identify and provide necessary supports and services. Instead, TJJD places them in specialized programs where they largely cannot leave their housing units, stops nearly all mental health treatment and provides limited access to education. Subjecting children to these restrictions has a devastating impact on their ability to earn release from TJJD and leaves them to manage their complex mental, emotional and behavioral needs on their own.

As a result, children with disabilities who get stuck in TJJD’s restrictive programs experience significant extensions to their time in custody. For example, one child with disabilities we discuss in our findings had nearly 370 incidents of rule violations involving disability-related behaviors. But rather than providing supports and services to address these behaviors, TJJD repeatedly sent him to restrictive programs. TJJD’s Review and Release Panel extended his time in TJJD five times, totaling an additional 15 months.

Other children who get stuck in TJJD’s restrictive programs find themselves pushed into the adult criminal justice system. Outcomes for these children can be very bleak. Sometimes, the resulting harm is irreversible. One child we discuss in our findings, for example, entered TJJD’s custody at 11 years old. His mental health quickly deteriorated, resulting in over 1,000 suicide risk assessments and over 80 acts of suicidal behavior. As soon as this child turned 16, TJJD transferred him to adult prison for allegedly hitting TJJD staff during an incident. The child died by suicide six months later.

Hundreds of children are confined to TJJD’s secure facilities every year. Around 80% of children in TJJD’s secure facilities are Black or Latinx. This is a racial justice issue. Our findings today reflect the department’s commitment to safeguarding children’s rights in the juvenile justice system. Our children deserve to be protected from harm, and access to essential treatment and services. That is what the Constitution and federal law require. 

We conducted this investigation under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act — federal laws that authorize the Justice Department to investigate state and local institutions, including juvenile justice facilities, to determine whether they are committing systemic violations of children’s constitutional and federal statutory rights. I will note that to reach our conclusions, we consulted with experts and inspected all five facilities. We spoke with hundreds of children in custody, as well as TJJD leadership, facility management, security staff, clinicians, case managers and education staff. And we reviewed thousands of pages of documents and hundreds of hours of video.

The Civil Rights Division is committed to protecting the rights of children in juvenile facilities across the country. We focus on identifying the root causes of violations so that solutions will be effective and longstanding. Examples:

• In our ongoing statewide investigation of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice’s detention centers, we are investigating allegations of physical and chemical force, isolation, sexual abuse and inadequate mental health care. We are also investigating whether Kentucky provides required special education services to children with disabilities.
• Our investigation of conditions for children in Manson Youth Institution in Connecticut found violations of children’s rights regarding disciplinary isolation, mental health care and special education services.
• And our settlement agreement with the South Carolina Department of Juvenile Justice prohibits the use of excessive force and isolation.

We want to acknowledge and thank Texas officials for cooperating with this investigation. We hope to come to an agreement with Texas on the actions necessary to address the violations we have identified. And we look forward to working together to improve conditions and identify services for children at all of TJJD’s secure facilities.

Nelson Mandela reminded us that, “There can be no keener revelation of a society’s soul than the way in which it treats its children.” 

Today’s findings report marks an opportunity to treat our kids better in Texas. Right now, we can resolve the systemic problems plaguing these facilities and put in place enduring reforms that improve outcomes for children. We hope that Texas will seize the opportunity and join us on that path.