TCJE in the News


Press Contact: For all media inquiries, please contact Madison Kaigh, Communications Manager, at mkaigh@TexasCJE.orgor (512) 441-8123, ext. 108.


 

Cruel and unusual: Dallas County teen inmates locked indoors for months

Death row inmates in Texas are given at least an hour a week outdoors. Hardened criminals inside California's famous San Quentin prison get 10 hours. Yet kids at a Dallas County correctional center for boys went months, sometimes more than a year, without going outdoors more than a few times.

Read the rest of this article at Dallas News.

Life After Meet-and-Confer

Barring some last-minute Christmas miracle, the city's meet-and-confer agreement with the Austin Police Association is dead. Over the weekend, union membership voted overwhelmingly (1,305 to 110) to reject City Council's overtures for a renegotiation.

Read the rest of this article at the Austin Chronicle.

Police decline further contract talks for now

The Austin Police Association on Tuesday resoundingly rejected the City Council’s request that it continue its current contract for a few months and return to the negotiating table.

Read the rest of this article at Austin Monitor.

Some APD officers already putting in for retirement after contract was stalled

Austin police officers have exactly two weeks to decide whether or not they will keep hashing out a new contract with the city.

Read the rest of this article at KXAN Austin.

Austin City Council Takes a Step Toward Police Reform, Rejects Union Contract

Activists said the contract would perpetuate a broken system of citizen oversight and shield cops who engage in misconduct.

Please read the rest of this article at The Texas Observer. 

State youth lockups under fire

Outraged by reports of abuses in Texas’ secure facilities for young offenders, lawmakers in a Senate finance committee called for top-to-bottom reform, and they’re not the only ones.

Read the rest of this article at Cleburne Times-Review.

Juvenile justice agency still plagued by high recidivism, turnover

Amid calls by children's advocacy groups for the state to close its six remaining juvenile lockups, and ongoing investigations into a chronic pattern of sexual assaults at those centers, a legislative committee on Tuesday is expected to open an inquiry into how to divert more teenage offenders into community-based programs rather than state custody.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.

More women are jailed in Texas, even though arrests have dropped. Why?

Back when the county jail here housed maybe three women, jailers didn’t have to worry much about contraband mascara, tampon shortages or raunchy love notes in the intra-inmate mail.

Read the rest of this article at Dallas News.

Texas reform advocates want to close all state-run youth lockups

Juvenile justice reform advocates want all the state's youth lockups closed after the department's latest sexual misconduct scandal. 

Read the rest of this article at The Texas Tribune.

Texas juvenile justice advocates call for closing of all state-run youth lockups

Four Texas civil rights and youth-justice reform groups called Thursday for the state to close all of its remaining juvenile-justice lockups and replacing them with community-based treatment and rehabilitation centers.

Read the rest of this article at the Houston Chronicle.