TYC Documentary Project

About the Project

Through intimate portraits of young people currently or formerly incarcerated in Texas’ juvenile prison system, our film examines whether the state is fulfilling its stated mission to rehabilitate our youngest offenders.

Rumors about the abuse and exploitation of young inmates in Texas’ juvenile justice facilities have circulated among prison employees for years. This spring, scandal made headlines when a Texas Ranger’s report about sexual abuse in one West Texas youth facility became public. Though the report graphically detailed how two top-level officials at the facility had offered boys extra snacks and reduced sentences in return for sexual favors, administrators at the Texas Youth Commission— the state agency that oversees facilities for incarcerated youth between the ages of 12 and 21—kept the report secret for nearly two years.

In addition to acts of physical and sexual abuse, further investigation reveals troubling flaws throughout the system— rehabilitation programs inadequate and ineffective, mental and medical illness ignored and untreated, facilities understaffed by overworked and exhausted personnel—as juvenile facilities become merely a stopping point in a pipeline to adult prison.

In the aftermath of the scandal, the Texas Legislature passed a reform bill intended not only to make abuse harder to commit and easier to detect and prosecute, but to drastically overhaul the nature of the agency. The on-going debate in Texas mirrors a national rethinking of juvenile justice, as more states shift from adult-style facilities for young prisoners to smaller facilities that emphasize treatment over punishment. Critics of the Texas system argue for doing away with the giant, high-security facilities that have been the flagships of the system for nearly a hundred years, but the question remains—what will we do with our children when they do wrong?