The Real Cost of Prisons Weblog

Critics of the new law say prosecutors around the state will push to have more youths certified to stand trial as adults if the crimes they are accused of committing would make them too serious a risk to have back on the street after only a year or two behind bars.

"The Legislature really tied our hands on this one," said Riley Shaw, a juvenile crimes prosecutor for the Tarrant County district attorney's office. "We are going to be looking at seeking [adult] certification in a greater number of cases than we had been under the old system."

Shaw's concerns were echoed by a representative of the Texas County and District Attorneys Association, by an urban county jail administrator and by a criminal justice advocacy group that had championed the overhaul of the youth commission on grounds that young offenders in state custody needed stronger measures on the books to safeguard their rights.

Dangerous kids

But a lawmaker who helped craft the measure urged critics to withhold judgment until all of the provisions have been tested in real-world conditions. Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, said the measure contains provisions to keep dangerous youths confined or under community supervision and allocates money to local authorities to operate community detention centers and halfway houses for troubled youngsters.

"They're trying to make the new statute a booger bear that it's not," said Whitmire, chairman of the Senate Criminal Justice Committee. "I think it would be a whole lot better if all the parties involved just worked together to make sure the statute is implemented the way it was supposed to be."

Shannon Edmonds, director of governmental relations for the county and district attorneys association, said the new law effectively undermines how young offenders are sentenced to confinement in a Texas Youth Commission facility. Under the old system, an offender could be sentenced to a certain number of years in custody. The offender would remain with the youth commission until he or she turned 21, and if time remained on the sentence would be transferred to an adult prison.

But now, if a 15- or 16-year-old commits a felony, he or she can be confined to a TYC facility only until age 19. After that, the options are supervised release or transfer to an adult prison.

"The mission of TYC is to rehabilitate these young offenders, and one year or two is just not enough time for a rehabilitation program to take hold," Edmonds said. "A lot of prosecutors are saying they don't want to risk having these offenders back in the community before they are rehabilitated, so the only way to ensure they remained confined is to opt for adult certification, which means they go to adult prison."

Unintended consequence

That might be the best answer for the community, but not for the young offender, said Isela Gutierrez, who handles juvenile issues for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition.

"We think that was an unintended consequence of Senate Bill 103 that will have to be addressed," said Gutierrez, whose organization supported the legislation. "Being back in the community [too soon] isn't the right place for a lot of these kids, but neither is adult prison."

Edmonds and Shaw said it's too soon to judge how many young offenders might be tried as adults because of the new law. But the jail administrator for the Bexar County Sheriff's Department said his agency is expecting as many as 100 such cases over the next year.

Deputy Chief Dennis McKnight said that he's been advised by local prosecutors to prepare to house up to 100 young offenders in the Bexar County lockup while they await trial in adult courtrooms. It won't be an easy task, he said.

"You can't just put these kids in any bed you find," McKnight said. "They've got to be segregated from the adult population. A lot of them are going to be gang members who'll have to be segregated from each other. There's going to be mental illness issues, substance abuse, you name it. And then, you're going to have to have education programs for them. An adult confinement facility is not designed for all that.

"Last year, I had four juveniles in my jail," he added. "And I had a read hard time dealing with that many."