Texas Juveniles Ordered Moved

Juvenile prison officials ordered the removal of young offenders from a privately run juvenile detention center on Monday, citing unsanitary and unsafe conditions.

A Texas Youth Commission official found unsanitary conditions at the Coke County Juvenile Justice Center in Bronte after a Sept. 24 visit. A follow-up audit ordered by state officials found it to be in an advanced state of disrepair and that some rehabilitation programs weren't being pursued, leaving detainees mostly confined.

The audit led officials to believe the health and safety of the youth housed at the center was in jeopardy, said commission spokesman Jim Hurley.

"The unsafe conditions I witnessed at Coke County this weekend are unacceptable," Dimitria D. Pope, the agency's acting executive director, said in a statement. "We have zero tolerance for any form of abuse within the system, and those responsible parties will be held accountable."

The commission was hit by scandal in February after The Dallas Morning News and The Texas Observer reported that officials ignored signs of sexual abuse of inmates at the West Texas State School in Pyote.

Since then, more reports of abuse or neglect have been made on the commission's complaint hot line, juvenile inmates have been released or relocated, and the agency has undergone a total restructuring.

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The concerns led the Texas Youth Commission to cancel its contract with the center's private operator, Boca Raton, Fla.-based GEO Group Inc.

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GEO has operated the center since 2003, when it bought the institutional division from The Wackenhut Corp. A message could not be left for GEO officials on the company's phone system Monday afternoon.

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These thugs, GEO, are the Blackwater of the for-profit-prisons. Everywhere you find them, there are complaints of brutality, deaths, and lawsuits.

Guess what?

The GEO Group Announces Agreement for the Housing of Immigration Detainees at the LaSalle Detention Facility in Jena, Louisiana.

Privatizing Misery, Deporting and Imprisoning Migrants for Profit

Building prisons for immigrants has been profitable for the GEO Group. In the year 2007 alone, GEO Group won contracts for a prison in Eagle Pass, Texas; an immigration detention facility in Jena, La. and a detention facility for U.S. Marshals service in Laredo, Tex. After the Jena, La., immigration detention facility reaches full occupancy with 1,160 inmates in 2008, GEO expects $23.5 million annually in revenues.

Many lawsuits likely to follow, which could ravage agency's budget

For the first time, the Texas Youth Commission is settling a claim brought over the agency's abuse scandal, individuals close to the proceedings said, agreeing to pay $30,000 to a former inmate who was brutally beaten by other inmates while in state custody in 2006.

Erik Rodriguez celebrated his April release from a Texas Youth Commission facility with his mother, Alice Smith. He said guards weren't at their post when four other inmates beat him. Officials also confirmed they're in final negotiations to settle a separate claim. But the youth corrections agency's legal problems may just be beginning: Juvenile justice advocates say dozens of lawsuits are in the works, and settling the first two could open the door for many more – potentially overwhelming the agency's budget.

"This settlement opens the floodgates for the literally dozens of families that have been devastated by this hideous, outlandish, outrageous conduct of a government agency," said James Myart, a civil rights attorney who represents the former inmate in the case, 19-year-old Erik Rodriguez.

Mr. Myart confirmed that Mr. Rodriguez has reached a settlement with the TYC but declined to give details, citing a confidentiality agreement.

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Do Schools’ Criminalization of On-Campus Fights Lead Black Youths into Downward Spiral?

Three of the Jena Six need to complete at least a year in high school to graduate, but they are virtually locked out of public schools in Louisiana.

“In Louisiana, once you’re expelled from a school in one parish, the other public schools do not accept you,” said Damon T. Hewitt, assistant counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense Fund.

Following a fight with a white classmate on Dec. 4, 2006, Mychal Bell, Robert Bailey Jr., Theo Shaw, Carwin Jones, Bryant Purvis and an unnamed juvenile were arrested and put out of Jena High School.

“Their educational opportunities have been derailed,” Hewitt told BlackAmericaWeb.com. It’s a phenomenon that studies show is occurring more frequently for black and brown youths, with continuing disparities in the rate of exclusion from educational opportunities"

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