Among her many thrifty suggestions, state Comptroller Carole Keeton Strayhorn has recommended combining the Texas Youth Commission — the institutional arm of the state’s juvenile justice system — with the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. Strayhorn’s idea has been suggested before during the 22 years the two agencies have been separate, but any belt-tightening measure is decidedly more appealing at the Capitol this session. Strayhorn says the plan would save $241,000 next fiscal year and nearly $1.2 million annually thereafter. But critics question the wisdom of funneling resources through the Youth Commission for TJPC, whose mission is to keep kids out of TYC institutions. Does the plan mean real savings, they ask, if the folks in charge of filling TYC beds are also responsible for keeping kids out of them?
On Feb. 11, TJPC Director Vicki Spriggs suggested to the Texas House Committee on Corrections that the idea is, in fact, a bad one. TJPC’s operations are free of fat, she said, with all but 2.5% of the agency’s $97 million budget going directly into programs designed to get kids the services they need to avoid becoming TYC inmates. And, she said, each agency administrator is a hands-on member delivering services to kids. “I know people think … they’re all kids so you can do the same thing [in TYC that you can do in TJPC],” she told the committee members. But, she said, “When institutional and community-based services [are put] together, we get to a crisis [point] where we have to cut services,” a dire result for Texas youth.
“The front-end services are [the ones] that are cut, as already exemplified in the adult system,” Spriggs told lawmakers. The Lege in 1989 merged adult-probation services with prisons when it created the Texas Dept. of Criminal Justice. Since then TDCJ’s prison budget — and construction of new facilities — has remained a priority, while rehabilitative services have continued to dwindle.
On Feb. 4 Spriggs wrote Perry, Lt. Gov. David Dewhurst and House Speaker Tom Craddick asking that her agency be exempted from any across-the-board cuts. As of press time Spriggs hadn’t received a response. But Committee on Corrections Chairman Rep. Ray Allen, R-Grand Prairie, attempted to allay her fears: “I’m delighted [to hear that the] juvenile system is not broken,” he said. “And we’ll do our best not to break it.”
This article appears in February 21 • 2003.