Mixed Messages at TYC?

[Joanne98]

April 5th, 2007 at 5:35 am
One of the quickest reforms instituted at the Texas Youth Commission has been the dismissal of any employee with a felony record, regardless of job performance. It’s a quick, tough-sounding step, intended to counteract headlines like this one from the Dallas Morning-News: “Staffers’ crimes, TYC abuse linked?” There are a number of problems with the blanket dismissal, including an appeal to a basic sense of fairness, since many of these employees acknowledged their criminal record up front and were still hired.

“That’s the one move that (TYC conservator) Jay Kimbrough has made to date that we don’t agree with,” said Texas ACLU director Will Harrell. Felons convicted of sex crimes and some violent offenses should certainly be prohibited from working with students. “That’s clearly acceptable,” he said.

But there are a few problems with firing employees who committed non-violent crimes, sometimes decades ago:

Given their history, these employees may be in a unique position to understand and work with TYC inmates
The turnover rate at TYC jobs is notoriously high, so it makes little practical sense to get rid of dedicated employees
In a juvenile justice system supposedly geared toward rehabilitation and reentry to society, what does it say to young inmates that these employees are being fired simply because of their pasts, not performance?
We’re no labor law experts, but indications are that the dismissals are within TYC’s rights. However, this approach is more band-aid than cure. TYC needs to overhaul its screening procsses. It should pay its employees better in order to reduce turnover and attract quality applicants. The desperation to fill chronically understaffed positions contributed to the loosening of hiring standards, which in turn allowed applicants with legitimately worrying criminal records to slip through the process. Those reforms will take longer and be harder to implement.

So for now, “Every employee at TYC is being tainted with the same brush,” Harrell said.

by Matthew C. Wright
http://www.texasobserver.org/blog/?p=236