Texas Youth Commission's Sex Scandal

Dallas Morning News:
http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/news/texassouthwest/stories/042607dntexfwtycarrest.a2671e7.html
http://www.dallasnews.com/investigativereports/tyc/

Texas Youth Commission:
http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/news/tyc_major_incidents.html
http://www.tyc.state.tx.us/news/index.html


For some time now the Texas Youth Commission has been under a microscope due to allegations of sexual abuse of inmates by staff. The state has become involved and is working on revamping the TYC's management. Problems continue to persist within TYC as one of the agency's officer was accused of having sex with a female resident while on a trip to the park on April 25. The incident is still under investigation.

I thought it was very interesting that the TYC's website has a link titled "In the News" with agency and facility press releases and a major incident tracker. The recent incident that occurred at the park was listed under "major incident tracker." The same language was used in the Dallas Morning News story as in the information listed on TYC's website, and the amount of information was about the same except for DMN giving a little more. The two stories are in agreement, but the information on TYC's site does not add to the story by the press because it just gives the bare facts. The tone for both stories are the same, but no gaps are filled on TYC's part. I also took the liberty of browsing the list of press releases available on TYC's website and noticed that there was not a lot of information on the cleanup of the system. There are press releases that discuss the management that has been put in place, but not the allegations and problems the agency has had to deal with.

It just appears that TYC acknowledges the problems within the agency, but does not discuss them in detail. In one press release the new acting executive director says, “We have a lot of work to do and problems to fix, but I’m confident this agency can meet that challenge." I think TYC has done a mediocre job in dealing with all the sexual abuse allegations and it would have been okay for TYC to talk a little more about the problems along with the solutions (i.e. new management). The news makes the scandals appear to be really big, but when you go to TYC's site it is very much downplayed. An individual could not fully grasp the magnitude of the scandals by going only to TYC's site.