Even before Ector County’s kids started being arrested for making threats at local schools, the county’s juvenile court system was already seeing a huge jump in the number of kids getting into trouble.
According to statistics obtained under the Texas Public Information Act, the number of kids referred to the Ector County Juvenile Court system jumped nearly 46% from Sept. 1, 2021 to Aug. 31, 2022. The probation department saw 151 felony drug referrals in FY22, a 268% jump, but it also recorded slight increases in the number of kids being referred for burglaries and thefts. The catch-all category of “other felonies” increased from 36 to 61, or 69%.
The number of kids being detained at the Ector County Youth Center reached such a high level a couple of weeks ago, Ector County Juvenile Probation Director Kevin Mann said his staff had to reassess the threat level of each one to determine which ones could go home because they had to lower the facility’s population.
Although the facility can hold 48 juveniles, Mann said he’s only comfortable housing 30 kids due to his current staffing levels. The facility reached 32 a couple of weeks ago.
The recent spike in kids being detained for threatening fellow students and teachers with violence is not helping matters, Mann said. While most are released after 10 days, they just keep being replaced with other kids who have made threats, he said.
“Thirty is really our cap, that’s our limit… If we go over that, you make it unsafe because you’re stretching your ratio of staff to kids,” Mann said. “You get to the 30 you start looking at your numbers saying ‘Gosh, dang, man.’ We’re really fixing to make this department unsafe for kids and staff. So you look on there and you find the ones that are less (dangerous) and you get with the prosecutor, you get with judge and say, ‘Hey, are you okay with us releasing those kids’ and that can be a bad practice. But when it’s all the staff and the funding you get, what else do you do?”
Mann also noted that a few weeks ago his staff was hit hard by COVID-19, something they managed to avoid during the worst days of the pandemic. Eight detention officers out of 40 were out virtually at once, he said.
“Even though you’re still staffed for 30, you still have people call in sick, you have people take vacation and you have people with doctor’s appointments and kids,” Mann said.
Mann also noted kids who have been sentenced to time in Texas Juvenile Justice Department facilities are having to wait up to three months for beds. That’s not helping matters, either, he said.
DRUGS
Mann and his deputy director Maria Sosa said last year they saw a lot of juveniles being referred to juvenile probation for vaping THC, the active ingredient in marijuana, but this year they are seeing a lot of kids being arrested for controlled substances in pill form.
“We don’t know where they’re getting it from. We just know that we’re definitely seeing an increase in those,” Sosa said.
“We’ve got kids selling it. Not only are they using it, they’re selling it,” Mann said. “They do it on social media. We’ll get pictures of them on Snapchat or whatever. ‘Hit me up.’ ‘Contact me. I’ve got whatever.’”
In recent days, they’ve heard about a lot of drug overdoses, too. Fentanyl is a real issue, they said.
Parents need to start monitoring their kids’ social media accounts and getting otherwise involved in their children’s lives, Mann and Sosa agreed.
“This whole social media thing. Man oh man, these kids network through that. They sell guns. They sell drugs. You name it and almost everything is funneled through that. It’s the easiest way,” Mann said.
Many of the kids just think drugs and guns are cool, Mann said.
“That image of ‘Look at me I carry a gun’… I think it goes back to some stuff just gets so glamorized and the kids are constantly seeing it on their social media feeds or in the music they listen to. They watch television, video games, whatever it is. That’s just their lifestyle. You know, that’s just ‘Hey, look at me, this is what I do. I’m just like this person on TV or I’m just like this gangster,’ whatever it is.”
Mann and Sosa said it amazes them how many times a probation officer will go into a kid’s room and see guns and drugs sitting there in full view on a dresser or TV stand.
“I think your parenting is different now. I think it’s a completely different group of parents from like when we were raised. I lived in my parents’ house. That wasn’t my room. Like I stayed in that room, but that wasn’t my room. That was my parents’ house,” Mann said. “I remember my parents going in. ‘What is this poster on the wall? Take that down,’ or ‘What’s this or what’s that?’ I think now, parents are just sort of like, ‘Whatever he’s doing over there, he’s doing.’ We see a lot of parents who are just so removed. Not all parents, but there is a majority that are so removed from what’s going on with their kid. They’re living their life and their kids are living their life.”
Ector County Court-at-Law Judge Brooke Hendricks, who handles the juvenile docket, said overcrowding in schools and bullying are definitely issues contributing to the rising numbers in recent weeks. She also agreed with Mann’s assessment on parenting.
“We have parents who are not disciplining their children, treating them like they are the adult in the house and have had zero consequences for their actions,” Hendricks said. “When they come to court they do not respect authority and we do our best to shift that mindset. Every child that comes before me gets the lecture that they are not the boss at school or at home, and certainly not in my courtroom.”
GUNS
Several years ago Mann said law enforcement used to arrest kids for shoplifting at the mall. Nowadays, they are arresting kids for breaking into cars to steal guns. They walk through neighborhoods looking for unlocked car doors looking specifically for guns.
“We’ve seen them on Snapchat saying ‘Get a hold of me. I got this gun. I’ll sell it.’ They use their little cryptic words, but you know what they’re saying. We’ve seen that but they’re also arming themselves. There’s no doubt,” Mann said.
REHABILITATION
Mann is convinced every child can be rehabilitated, but they have a lot of obstacles placed in their path, he said. There aren’t enough counselors in the area who can address substance abuse or mental health issues, for one. For another, the kids often don’t have the support they need, he said.
“Kids, at the end of the day, have got to have a support system,” Mann said. “A kid can go away for treatment, but if they come back right into a home where siblings use or parents use or their uncle uses or their peers, then they’re gonna fall right back into that.”
“We’ve noticed kids, when they’re in a secure environment where their actions every day are controlled, they behave. They’re saying the right things. They have a plan and when they get out, they walk right back out in the street and it changes. I mean, it’s just instant,” he said.
There are times when they almost wish they can take steps to keep kids inside facilities longer, Mann said.
Hendricks said the probation department often has to try to fill the gaps because many of the children “do not have the appropriate support system at home.”
“We want these children to know we are here to help them be successful,” Hendricks said. “The purpose of the juvenile system is to rehabilitate versus punishment. Of course, there will always be children with whom we have exhausted all our resources, or when the case is so heinous the TJJD is now our only option.”
Mann said his probation officers do the best they can.
“We just have conversations with the families and the kids. ‘Let’s make better decisions.’ We’re constantly in contact with them, calling them every day or going by the house. We do a lot of home visits, school visits, and we’re always there to encourage, but at the end of the day, we go home to our families and go to bed. We can’t control what’s going on outside of our vision,” Mann said.
NEW FACILITY
Mann expressed disappointment that with building costs so high Ector County likely won’t be getting the new facility he dreamed of. The county didn’t receive any bids for a proposed $25 million facility, with many contractors informally telling county officials they couldn’t build it for that price because of skyrocketing costs. As a result, the county intends to go back out to bid with a scaled down version.
The hope had been the new, larger facility would address not only safety and privacy concerns, but that it would give staff and volunteers the space they need for new rehabilitative programs for both kids who are waiting to be adjudicated and for those who have already been adjudicated and currently have to be shipped outside the county, Mann said.
The proposed facility would have had 64 beds, a multi-purpose room, a gymnasium, several more day rooms, a library and multiple courtyards with space for a garden.
Ector County Judge Debi Hays said last week the county will be seeking new bids for a 32-bed facility because the county is also no longer considering bringing post-adjudicated kids back to Ector County to serve their sentences, she said.
While the new facility will be smaller than the existing facility, she said it will be better laid out.
The need for rehabilitative, vocational and educational programs is huge, Mann said. According to the latest state statistics, 33% of kids who spend time in TJJD facilities land back into trouble, he said.
Many of the kids in the system are suffering from depression, anxiety, PTSD and substance abuse issues, he noted.
“These kids have witnessed a lot, especially these kids who are always getting in trouble and are always on the streets. They witness violence. They witness abuse. They witness seeing kids overdose. They’ve seen shootings or they’ve been shot at,” Mann said. “They’re always in the fight or flight mode, always and then they come out here and they don’t trust us. They don’t trust the police. They don’t trust teachers. They don’t trust anybody in authority and we have to break down those barriers.”
