Complaints Against Texas’ Juvenile Prisons Include Violence and Sex Abuse
The New York Times
The extensive allegations present a portrait of an environment inside the state’s juvenile prisons that is rife with physical attacks.
SAN ANTONIO — In October 2019, a man who worked at a juvenile detention center in Central Texas was charged with sexual assault and accused of forcing a boy in custody to perform oral sex on him in his cell. The incident came to light the day after the alleged crime, when the boy tried to kill himself.
Two months before that, at another detention facility in Texas, a corrections officer was fired after a teenage girl claimed she was pregnant with his child. He was later charged in connection with that case. And in May of last year, another prison worker was arrested on charges that he had carried on a relationship with a teenager who was on parole.
At five state juvenile detention centers, the day-to-day conditions are relentlessly violent and oppressive, with guards often resorting to force, according to a complaint filed to the Justice Department. In 2019, prison staff used force against incarcerated children almost 7,000 times — equivalent to six times per child who was confined that year.
