Prometheus 6

This is where Shaquanda Cotton was sent.

Meanwhile, Shaquanda, a first-time offender, remains something of an anomaly inside the Texas Youth Commission prison system, where officials say 95 percent of the 2,500 juveniles in their custody are chronic, serious offenders who already have exhausted county-level programs such as probation and local treatment or detention.

"The Texas Youth Commission is reserved for those youth who are most violent or most habitual," said commission spokesman Tim Savoy. "The whole concept of commitment until your 21st birthday should be recognized as a severe penalty, and that's why it's typically the last resort of the juvenile system in Texas."

Inside the youth prison in Brownwood where she has been incarcerated for the past 10 months--a prison currently at the center of a state scandal involving a guard who allegedly sexually abused teenage inmates--Shaquanda, who is now 15, says she has not been doing well.

Three times she has tried to injure herself, first by scratching her face, then by cutting her arm. The last time, she said, she copied a method she saw another young inmate try, knotting a sweater around her neck and yanking it tight so she couldn't breathe. The guards noticed her sprawled inside her cell before it was too late.

She tried to harm herself, Shaquanda said, out of depression, desperation and fear of the hardened young thieves, robbers, sex offenders and parole violators all around her whom she must try to avoid each day.

"I get paranoid when I get around some of these girls," Shaquanda said. "Sometimes I feel like I just can't do this no more--that I can't survive this."

Texas youth prison board ousted amid sex abuse scandal
All six members step down after reports that officials covered up molestation allegations.
By Miguel Bustillo
Times Staff Writer
March 17, 2007

HOUSTON — The entire governing board of the Texas Youth Commission resigned Friday, the latest fallout from reports that officials covered up claims of sexual abuse in state detention centers.

Last month, the Dallas Morning News and the Texas Observer website reported that a Texas Rangers investigation had concluded top officials at a juvenile center had molested youths in their custody. The administrators under suspicion were allowed to resign quietly, and prosecutors did not charge anyone.

Lawmakers since have learned that a convicted sex offender was working as a guard at another center, and that an official suspected of molesting juvenile inmates was living with a 16-year-old boy. (The official resigned.) There also have been allegations that detention officials tampered with reports and concealed evidence of violence and sex abuse.

The Texas Youth Commission houses about 2,700 inmates ages 10 to 20 who are considered violent or chronically delinquent. The system is notorious for a history of riots, a staff turnover rate of nearly 50% a year, and the biggest workers' compensation bills of any state agency.

Over the years, many parents have alleged that their children were beaten or molested in detention. But youth commission officials downplayed the cases, according to lawmakers and juvenile justice groups, and state leaders did not see them as a sign of systemic problems.

After the reports about the Texas Rangers investigation, lawmakers found that allegations of sexual abuse and violence at state juvenile centers were widespread.

Youth authority officials had referred more than 6,000 abuse allegations to local law enforcement, including accusations that employees engaged in sodomy and oral sex with boys and girls. Eighteen of those cases were prosecuted. It is not clear how many resulted in convictions.

"When TYC representatives testified in their suits before these legislative committees, they were seen as more credible than these parents, who were low-income, sometimes had criminal backgrounds and often showed up in jeans," said Isela Gutierrez, coordinator of the Texas Coalition Advocating Justice for Juveniles.

"These are probably the least-wanted kids in this state, and I am glad someone is finally paying attention to them," she said. "But I am also worried … that the new people who come in may not be any different from the same old players who swept this under the rug."