TYC Scandal: State Fires Juvenile Prison Guard Who Was A Sex Offender

Via the Dallas Morning News:

The state on Wednesday fired a West Texas juvenile justice guard it didn’t know until recently was a registered sex offender, the first termination in the far-reaching investigation into sexual abuse allegations in Texas’ youth prison system.

Oh, my. So, the first termination wasn’t someone in high-level management who has been asleep at the wheel for more than two years? That’s a shock, but not as bad of a shock that a sex offender was supervising a juvenile offenders.

Of course, this happened at one of the privatized facilities, and is one more glaring example that privitizing government functions is almost always a big, fat, mistake.

Jay Kimbrough, Governor Perry’s Hand-Picked Special Master had this to say:

“This is the kind of stuff that shows how important it is for us to be out in the field en masse,” said Jay Kimbrough, the special master over the investigation who on Tuesday dispatched 71 law-enforcement agents to youth justice facilities across the state. “I think this is a big find, and it’s going to be a big fix.”

Oh, really? You had to go out into the field for this? It seems to me someone running a background check in an office in Austin could have discovered this six months ago, had they bothered to check, double check or, GOD FORBID, audit the work of the private firm.

And, if he thinks one guard with a juvie sex offender conviction is a “big find,” I wonder what he’s going to call it when he discovers, in about six months (well after the media and the rest of the world has already done so) that the entire system was grossly mismanaged and that Governor Perry should have taken action sooner because he knew there was a problem?

That will probably just be classified as a “minor development.”

Oh, well. If the TYC Board jumps a plane to Ardmore, Oklahoma sometime in the next few weeks, at least the right man to find them is on the job.

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