A Frosted Flakes Top O' The Morning To You!
As nostalgic as it makes one feel, watching milk ricochet off Frosted Flakes and hearing the crackle of toasted corn doesn't convince everyone to become a morning person. Particularly when a tiger is lurking.
The Texas Youth Commission scandal erupted and we are now hearing about an agency-wide aberration. The Governor's wake up call was accompanied by legislators asking pointed questions.
It is not news that for many years public officials knew bad things were happening to youth behind TYC locked doors. If any of those officials didn't know, they should have known. But cream rises to the top and can ensnarl duty with personal comfort to form a Don't Ask, Don't Tell headlock. State agency structure is the same to misfortune as humidity is to mold.
Keeping mum and lacing silence with insolence had been the united approach to deal with administrative unpleasantries at and about TYC. That is, until the very real threat surfaced that a federal judge might begin issuing report cards. Like naughty children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the Texas legislature and Governor suddenly shot into fast action to clean up the mess in hopes of avoiding a federal torpedo.
When a federal judge contemplates stepping inside a State incarceration agency it signals a history of extreme inhumane conditions and that no one in an ultimate authority position gave a flip.
This is not TYC's first rodeo or the first attempt to avoid the tiger, so an immediate plan was devised to divert the placement of the agency from a legislatively arranged conservatorship; to deflect federal interest; and defeat federal jurisdiction. The plan was created at the direction of Jay Kimbrough, the Governor's hands-on troubleshooter who is a brilliant strategist, formidable lawyer and former Marine Corps Vietnam combat veteran. He is as tough as it gets and has put out more fires than Carter has liver pills. Upon exiting his assignments, most of the ashes are untraceable.
Under Kimbrough's plan, Perry first created the position of TYC Special Master and then appointed Kimbrough to fill it. So, when TYC Board Members were forced to vote for an agency rehabilitation plan that assigned all the Board's authority to one person, Ed Owens, it didn't surprise anyone who was familiar with Kimbrough's past work. The Board members understood well in advance that their vote on that particular issue would be their last official act. Well, that is, the last one before resigning. An invitation to leave by Kimbrough isn't optional.
Owens is an agency veteran who knows how to put and keep a lid on the rest of the story. He is no less a politician than anyone else involved. Arguably, Kimbrough positioned Owens as the only person other than himself who will have knowledge to testify before the legislature and Federal Judge on post crisis on-going agency business. Owens is the TYC before and after demarcation line. Suffice it to say, the plan illustrates excellent past and future information containment control.
In spite of his ability to provide polished testimony, the appointment of the one-man band may hoist the Governor by his own petard. Sexual abuse of confined residents is a loaded TYC bugaboo. During his tenure as Number Two in command at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Owens and others were sued for matters arising out of inappropriate sexual advances made by a TDCJ Department Head. The victim in that lawsuit stated that although Owens had been notified about the misconduct and the continuing danger to employees, he refused to implement action which would have secured a safe work environment. The offending Department Head was protected by the same agency that boasts about having zero tolerance for sexual harassment. Eventually, the Department Head was criminally convicted and Texas tax dollars bought resolve of the civil lawsuit.
A trip down memory lane lands us in 1974 when Federal Judge William Wayne Justice interjected himself as the overseer of the TYC overseers because juvenile residents were being mistreated. In the years afterward, while TYC's appeal of Justice's oversight was pending, TYC cleaned up by changing out upper crust, writing policies and implementing them. By the time the United States Supreme Court reviewed Justice's order, the TYC had documented positive results from the changes and were successful in persuading the Court it was competent to operate the agency without further federal intrusion.
Although the blueprint for the agency's future operation looks pat, who will administer salve to the brutally injured casualties of calculated indifference?
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
The Texas Youth Commission scandal erupted and we are now hearing about an agency-wide aberration. The Governor's wake up call was accompanied by legislators asking pointed questions.
It is not news that for many years public officials knew bad things were happening to youth behind TYC locked doors. If any of those officials didn't know, they should have known. But cream rises to the top and can ensnarl duty with personal comfort to form a Don't Ask, Don't Tell headlock. State agency structure is the same to misfortune as humidity is to mold.
Keeping mum and lacing silence with insolence had been the united approach to deal with administrative unpleasantries at and about TYC. That is, until the very real threat surfaced that a federal judge might begin issuing report cards. Like naughty children caught with their hands in the cookie jar, the Texas legislature and Governor suddenly shot into fast action to clean up the mess in hopes of avoiding a federal torpedo.
When a federal judge contemplates stepping inside a State incarceration agency it signals a history of extreme inhumane conditions and that no one in an ultimate authority position gave a flip.
This is not TYC's first rodeo or the first attempt to avoid the tiger, so an immediate plan was devised to divert the placement of the agency from a legislatively arranged conservatorship; to deflect federal interest; and defeat federal jurisdiction. The plan was created at the direction of Jay Kimbrough, the Governor's hands-on troubleshooter who is a brilliant strategist, formidable lawyer and former Marine Corps Vietnam combat veteran. He is as tough as it gets and has put out more fires than Carter has liver pills. Upon exiting his assignments, most of the ashes are untraceable.
Under Kimbrough's plan, Perry first created the position of TYC Special Master and then appointed Kimbrough to fill it. So, when TYC Board Members were forced to vote for an agency rehabilitation plan that assigned all the Board's authority to one person, Ed Owens, it didn't surprise anyone who was familiar with Kimbrough's past work. The Board members understood well in advance that their vote on that particular issue would be their last official act. Well, that is, the last one before resigning. An invitation to leave by Kimbrough isn't optional.
Owens is an agency veteran who knows how to put and keep a lid on the rest of the story. He is no less a politician than anyone else involved. Arguably, Kimbrough positioned Owens as the only person other than himself who will have knowledge to testify before the legislature and Federal Judge on post crisis on-going agency business. Owens is the TYC before and after demarcation line. Suffice it to say, the plan illustrates excellent past and future information containment control.
In spite of his ability to provide polished testimony, the appointment of the one-man band may hoist the Governor by his own petard. Sexual abuse of confined residents is a loaded TYC bugaboo. During his tenure as Number Two in command at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice, Owens and others were sued for matters arising out of inappropriate sexual advances made by a TDCJ Department Head. The victim in that lawsuit stated that although Owens had been notified about the misconduct and the continuing danger to employees, he refused to implement action which would have secured a safe work environment. The offending Department Head was protected by the same agency that boasts about having zero tolerance for sexual harassment. Eventually, the Department Head was criminally convicted and Texas tax dollars bought resolve of the civil lawsuit.
A trip down memory lane lands us in 1974 when Federal Judge William Wayne Justice interjected himself as the overseer of the TYC overseers because juvenile residents were being mistreated. In the years afterward, while TYC's appeal of Justice's oversight was pending, TYC cleaned up by changing out upper crust, writing policies and implementing them. By the time the United States Supreme Court reviewed Justice's order, the TYC had documented positive results from the changes and were successful in persuading the Court it was competent to operate the agency without further federal intrusion.
Although the blueprint for the agency's future operation looks pat, who will administer salve to the brutally injured casualties of calculated indifference?
© Coninc., TheDownsideUp.Com 2007
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posted by KKHC | 6:16 AM
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