Kids are in danger. But Tarrant County Juvenile Board is in no hurry to fix detention issues

We already knew the Tarrant County Juvenile Detention Center was struggling due to overcrowding. Incredibly, the situation has worsened because officials who could make changes refuse to see the severity of the issue at hand and want to pass the buck to someone else.

A recent meeting between Tarrant County commissioners and the judges who serve on Tarrant County’s Juvenile Board proved futile, yet revealing: The judges refused to do anything about the overcrowding.

Worse, when Tarrant County Judge Glen Whitley, who presides at Commissioners Court, asked the Juvenile Board to come up with solutions to overcrowding and other issues, District Court Judge Robb Catalano, who heads the Juvenile Board, said that was the first time the board had heard about Whitley’s request. How on earth did he miss the news, including several stories in the Star-Telegram?

In the end, the Juvenile Board played the adult version of musical chairs, pointing out that the coming election will bring several new members to the Commissioners Court. Board members washed their hands of the very problems they are there to resolve, content to use the excuse of a transition. Perhaps, “The Do-Nothing Juvenile Board Does Nothing,” should be our headline.

While it’s true that there will soon be a changing of the guard at the county, there’s no reason the Juvenile Board couldn’t have brainstormed ways to reduce overcrowding to provide the next batch of memes with ideas or a jump start. They’ve seen the results of a county-ordered review and known about this problem since August. Surely someone must have been surprised, disappointed and determined to resolve it. Or, sadly, maybe not.

The audit results were damning: More children are being detained and for longer periods, even as much as a year. There’s not enough staff to handle the strain. According to the report summary, the center exceeded capacity by 18 detainees.

“Strained resources in both staff and space created an unsafe environment and placed the facility out of compliance with mandatory state standards,” wrote the auditor, juvenile justice veteran Carey Cockerell. More than 30 17-year-old detainees were sent to the Tarrant County Jail — and they were placed among the general population, which violates state law.

Contributing to the overcrowding is the slow train of “justice,” if you can call it that. There are two associate juvenile judges, Cynthia Terry and Andy Porter, who held so few hearings last summer, insiders reportedly began referring to one of them as a “ghost” court. Whitley voted to strip them of funding in a September budget meeting.

To his credit, Whitley tried to push the Juvenile Board along. He suggested that the Juvenile Board could designate a different court to oversee juvenile detention hearings, meaning the removal and transfer of 323rd Family District Court Judge Alex Kim or that the Board could use court referees instead of associate judges.

Instead of coming to a consensus, the Juvenile Board shifted blame to a “triage” committee formed in April, which is supposed to meet anytime the juvenile detention center’s population reaches near capacity.

Kim, who oversees juvenile hearings and the detention center, said he didn’t think the juvenile system was broken at all and that cases move faster in Tarrant County than in similar counties.

But it’s not enough to ease the logistical nightmare for the detainees and staff, which is, most importantly, a danger to the children. We want judges and law enforcement to seriously consider major crimes. Children must be rehabilitated into society if they can be. Mistreating them while they are detained increases the odds that they’ll continue to offend.

The Juvenile Board has had time to come up with solutions to the overcrowding and has delayed, shifted power and passed the buck. If members are going to use the election to obfuscate further, the new Commissioners Court must make fixing the detention center a priority. Because apparently, no one else will.