The unprecedented lockdown of all five youth prisons in Texas earlier this year led to "increased self-harm by youth, delayed treatment including for youth on suicide alert, and escalated use of force" against children, according to a report published Friday by the Texas Sunset Advisory Commission.
"Isolation heightens the probability of a youth acting out," says the report from the commission, which evaluates the performance of state agencies.
Officials at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) had defended the lockdown as a way to improve safety at youth prisons following assaults against staff, but an investigation by KERA and The Texas Newsroom, cited by the Sunset Commission report, revealed that the children subjected to the lockdown harmed themselves scores of times over a period of just a few days and that staff struggled to get a handle on the situation.
The report also indicates that county juvenile probation departments (JPDs), which have custody of the children before they go to the state's youth prisons, were kept in the dark about the lockdown conditions for five days. So were juvenile judges across the state.
"A JPD with a youth in a state facility and juvenile judges who make decisions about committing youth to TJJD must be informed about such critical events," the report says.
A TJJD spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
The agency has long been in turmoil. A 2024 investigation by the Department of Justice alleged rampant sexual and physical abuse in Texas' youth prisons. It also cautioned against keeping youth in their cells for extended periods of time — two years before agency leaders chose to do exactly that for a period of several days.
The Sunset Commission report comes weeks after TJJD's executive director Shandra Carter abruptly resigned from her position. She has not publicly addressed the exact reason for her departure.
The report is the first of three that the commission is expected to publish in the next few months. This one was authored by staff at the agency; the second will contain recommendations from members of the commission itself, which is made up mostly of state lawmakers. Two of those lawmakers, both Republicans, lost their bids for re-election.
The makeup of the Sunset Commission is likely to change following the November 2026 midterms. The lieutenant governor has historically appointed several members of the Texas Senate to the commission, while the speaker of the house appoints several members from the Texas House of Representatives. Both of those positions are now held by Democrats.
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