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In cold bureaucratic language, the official reports describe lurid acts: High-ranking officials at an isolated state juvenile prison were molesting
young male inmates. The top official at the Pyote facility for much of the time under investigation was Lemuel "Chip" Harrison, the superintendent.
He said that he had not seen the TYC report, but, "I don't know of anybody who ever covered up anything."
Many prison staffers at the West Texas State School complained about the abuse to their immediate bosses and to officials in Austin, the reports say.
But, for more than a year, no one in charge did anything to stop it. Evidence was ignored or covered up. Two years after a Texas Rangers investigation
concluded, no one has been prosecuted.
Some former employees say similar problems afflict many prisons run by the Texas Youth Commission, whose official mission is to "fix broken
children."
Fix broken children? You're going to fix broken children? With what? Broken adults?
This case brings to light an unsettling reality that many of us are already familiar with - but it's stories like these that help outsiders see what
goes on inside the system.
Sex abuse of state wards has always been a problem, and it's a notoriously slippery one. These kids are often at the mercy of their warders, who use
them in all kinds of horrific ways. Being in a position like that of some of these wards is not something I'd wish on anyone, the hopelessness, the
fear, the powerlessness. It's a horrible way to live. It results in even more strain on an already stressed person, and the results speak for
themselves.
Wards of the state have always had serious problems with criminality, recidivism, exploitation, drug abuse, and suicide. Nobody has ever questioned
why, because we mostly already know the answers. These kids come from messed up situations, and instead of being rehabilitated with a stable, loving
environment, many of them are exploited and abused by the very people paid to protect them, case officers and jailers and reform school employees.
I think most of us have sympathy for these kids, just based on whatever situation led to them being locked up in the first place. But when they have
to suffer through this as well, we really have to ask ourselves what business the state has trying to fix this problem - all it seems to do is make
matters worse. Don't we have an obligation to these kids to, at the very least, not make their lives worse?
