TYC still outsourcing custody of 10-13 year olds

Previously, I noted that the Texas Youth Commission had a secret (okay, underpublicized) plan to outsource care and custody of 10- to 13-year-old offenders to a private company. Now here's an update to that story:

Upheaval at the Texas Youth Commission could mean a new revenue source for Kerr County from the leasing of vacant beds at its juvenile detention center.

Two companies vying for state contracts to house offenders want to use the 48-bed facility that was mothballed by the county last year amid a fiscal crisis at the center that saw half its staff let go.

[...]

County Judge Pat Tinley is optimistic about leasing the larger building, which the county took over in 1997 after the private company that opened it in 1994 declared bankruptcy.

"There are only a limited number of secure long-term juvenile facilities available in the state," he said.

The state's juvenile corrections agency sought bids from detention companies last month. But it withdrew the "requests for proposals" so it could assess the impact of laws and operational changes sparked by troubling revelations about abuses of inmates at TYC facilities.

"There's still a lot of change going on with everything from our treatment programming to our population needs," said Tim Savoy, TYC spokesman.

But, he said, the agency plans to seek bids Sept. 15 for secure sites to house boys between 10 and 13, and pregnant girls.

I'll let Grits for Breakfast, who was the first to notice this scheme, take it from there:

The agency issued its last press release in June. There's no release on the decision to re-issue the RFP for 10-13 year olds in September, just as the decision to cancel the last RFP was ultimately confirmed to the press but never announced. For an agency whose leaders promised a new "transparency," the decisionmaking process has been utterly opaque, without even public hearings as part of agency rulemaking. While there's no "stakeholders" list for notification about key decisions, some folks apparently know some things before the rest of us.

This story bubbled up in the media, not from a reporter covering TYC, but from a journalist focused on local politics in Kerr County, where vendors and local officials knew the RFP would be re-released before the public had been told.

So, an RFP was issued, then retracted, then plans formed to re-issue it again without any formal announcement to the public. Privatization of care for 10-13 year olds is not a requirement of SB 103 or the Legislature, it's just something Ed Owens and Dimitria Pope apparently want to do. Why?

Good question. Sure would be nice to hear some answers, wouldn't it?

Posted by Charles Kuffner on August 27, 2007 to Crime and Punishment