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Hunt on for juvenile detainee beds
County considers Eagle Lake facility now that TYC no longer an
option
July 27, 2007
By Bill Murphy
Harris County officials are looking
at sending more than 140 juvenile detainees to a Colorado County
facility as the Juvenile Probation Department scrambles to absorb
hundreds of offenders the Texas Youth Commission no longer will
accept.
The county could buy or lease an
abandoned, but relatively new, juvenile facility in Eagle Lake and
have it running in two months, Bill Hawkins, head of the Harris
County District Attorney's juvenile division, said at Thursday's
county juvenile board meeting.
Without additional facilities, the
county runs the risk that potentially dangerous youths who formerly
were detained in local or TYC lockups will be out on the street,
committing more crimes, Hawkins said.
"Juvenile recidivism is up," he
said. "The outcomes are not as good as when the kids were being held
longer."
According to Juvenile Probation
Department Director Harvey Hetzel, youth offenders are serving
shorter periods in county detention after their cases have been
settled.
In 2004, the average stay was 58
days, Hetzel said. That has shrunk to 38 this year. Hetzel said he
expects the average stay to hit 35 days as TYC's new policy effects
are felt.
Harris County's juvenile probation
facilities regularly have been cited for overcrowding by a
state-monitoring agency in recent years.
Without additional detention space,
that overcrowding could worsen because state lawmakers this year
barred TYC from accepting youths convicted of misdemeanors, Hetzel
said.
Last year, the county sent 425
juveniles to TYC for misdemeanor offenses.
Most were chronic offenders, and
many did not curb criminal behavior after being detained at the
county's juvenile bootcamp or other facilities, Hawkins said. Some
originally were charged with felonies, including assault and drug
dealing, but struck misdemeanor plea deals.
The governor's office and the
Legislature sought to reform the TYC after a sex abuse scandal at a
remote West Texas facility surfaced last February. The probe
mushroomed, and lawmakers began looking at problems at far-flung TYC
facilities and headquarters.
"The state has pushed back through
the pipeline these kids we were legitimately sending to them," State
District Judge Pat Shelton, one of the county's three juvenile
judges, said earlier this week.
Youths sent to TYC included chronic
shoplifters, and those who repeatedly took part in assaults and
engaged in criminal mischief, Shelton said.
"What do you do if they are doing
this every week, but you don't have the alternative sanction of TYC
anymore?" he asked.
The state is providing Harris
County with additional funding — $5.8 million — to defray the costs
of detaining more youths during the next three years.
The $5.8 million represents only
part of the expense of taking on an additional 425 youths a year,
Hetzel said.
It would cost the county $6 million
to $7 million a year to operate the Eagle Lake facility, and it will
serve only 144 youths, he said.
Staffing concerns Those operational
costs, he said, don't include the cost of buying or leasing the
facility, which was built in the 1990s.
District Attorney Chuck Rosenthal
has offered to give the probation department $2.2 million to help
buy or lease in Eagle Lake. The money would come from assets
forfeited by criminals, Hawkins said.
Eagle Lake is about 65 miles west
of downtown Houston in a sparsely populated area. The facility would
need a staff of 125, most of whom would come from the surrounding
area.
Hetzel said he was worried he may
not be able to find enough staff for the facility.
"I have difficulty staffing our
boot camp in Katy," he said.
The juvenile board authorized using
some of the $5.8 million to put youths in private detention
facilities in Texas.
But with too few detention beds,
more youths who used to be detained in local or TYC lockups will be
placed on probation, Hetzel said. Others will serve shorter
sentences before being released on probation.
More than $800,000 of the $5.8
million will pay for expanding programs that monitor youths released
from detention and aiding them in living productive lives.
County juvenile detention
facilities are being expanded and soon will have 470 beds for those
whose cases have been decided, and 250 beds for others.
Commissioners Court likely will ask
voters this November to approve $76 million in bonds to convert the
jail at 1301 Franklin into a juvenile facility.
bill.murphy@chron.com
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