For Their Own Good: A Chance at Rehabilitation

If a juvenile who’s been certified as an adult is found guilty of a
crime, there is a procedure in Texas that would seem to give both the
teen and the prosecutor the best of both worlds: the rehabilitative
environment of a juvenile facility plus long-term incarceration in a
state prison. It is called determinate sentencing.

Under this procedure, the teen goes to a Texas Youth Commission
facility until he is 19. Then, depending on the outcome of a court
hearing, he can be sent to state prison for up to 40 years.

Statistics obtained from the Harris County Juvenile Probation
Department show that for the past decade, determinate sentences have
been given to roughly half as many juveniles as are certified.

A major problem, however, as far as prosecutors are concerned, is
that TYC officials have the power to place a teen on parole after he
turns 19 instead of sending him to prison, so long as juvenile
officials feel he has been rehabilitated.

“One could argue that determinate sentencing might be the way to
go,” says Bill Moore, Juvenile Division Chief for the Office of the
Harris County District Attorney, “but the cases getting certified are
pretty bad crimes and frankly we want to lock them up.”

Prosecutors’ hesitation to use determinate sentencing taps into a
larger issue, one that appears to be causing the number of juveniles
certified as adults to spike.

Up until the end of 2007, TYC could hold juveniles until they turned
21. The state legislature, however, reduced the age to 19 in an attempt
to refocus the commission’s attention on rehabilitating the younger
kids and reducing the number of juveniles in state facilities.

According to TYC Ombudsman Will Harrell, an unintended result of the
new law has been that more kids are being certified.

In fiscal year 2008, the first year the change was in effect,
juvenile courts across Texas certified 30 percent more kids than the
year before, according to a report from Harrell’s office. It marked the
largest number of certified teens since 1999. At the same time, the
overall number of referrals to the juvenile system decreased by almost
6 percent, according to the report.

The reason is simple. Judges and prosecutors feel that there is now
less time, perhaps not enough time, for teens to be rehabilitated in a
juvenile facility before they are released, especially if they are
closer to 17 than 14 when they’re sentenced.

“Anecdotally,” says Harris County Juvenile Court Judge Michael
Schneider, “just from talking to judges across Texas, almost every one
of them has reported to me that they are certifying more kids now as a
result of the change.”

Harrell and other juvenile justice advocates are working and
lobbying to get the age restriction restored to 21. They argue that
unless the age limit is raised, more and more kids will continue to be
certified, meaning, in Harris County at least, that more and more kids
will wait for trial while locked up in isolation.