FW: Littlefield, TX -- State audit, Dallas Morning News editorial
spike...@gmail.com
From: William Dobbs <duc...@mindspring.com>
Sent: Wednesday, August 23, 2023 4:29 PM
To: cure...@googlegroups.com
Subject: Littlefield, TX -- State audit, Dallas Morning News editorial
The Texas State Auditor recently issued a report the about Texas Civil Commitment Office (TCCO) which runs the state’s s sex offense civil commitment (SOCC) program. Hundreds who have already completed prison sentences for a sex offense are locked up indefinitely on the state’s hunch they will commit another offense in the future, for dubious treatment that never seems to end. The program is a constitutional and human rights nightmare and located in Littlefield, TX
Below are several items:
A Dallas Morning News editorial celebrating the SOCC program while urging TCCO to pay more attention to state contracting procedures.
A letter to the editor published in the Dallas Morning News sparked by the editorial, explaining the awfulness of sex offense civil commitment. The author is a retired sex offense treatment provider and member of Texas Voices board, an advocacy group.
Link to the June 2023 Texas State Auditor report
Link to a June 2015 Texas State Auditor report
-Bill Dobbs
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Dallas Morning News | July 17, 2023
EDITORIAL: Auditor: Agency overseeing state’s worst sexually violent predators must improve
Lapses in contract management with treatment vendor must be fixed
The dome of the Texas State Capitol (Art Wager / Getty Images)
By Dallas Morning News Editorial
Some convicted of sex crimes are simply too dangerous to be let back on the streets even after they’ve completed prison sentences.
Texas law allows courts to label these offenders as “sexually violent predators” and commit them to a treatment facility aimed at trying to repair their deep-rooted behavioral abnormalities.
No longer called inmates, these state “clients” go directly from prisons to a lockup center northwest of Lubbock where most of them stay for years, housed safely away from the public behind razor-wire fences. About 450 men reside there today.
It’s alarming, then, that a recent state audit found that the agency charged with overseeing these predators has mishandled its contract with the private vendor it hired to treat them.
The Texas State Auditor found that the Texas Civil Commitment Office wrongly extended its contract with the Utah-based Management & Training Corp., in violation of state procurement requirements.
Of particular concern is that the 2022 extension was made the same year that the TCCO failed to submit its required annual vendor performance report to the state comptroller. When it finally did this in May, after the auditor pointed out the lapse during its investigation, the TCCO gave the vendor only a “C” rating.
In its written response to the June audit, the TCCO sharply defended its actions, saying the contract extension, from five years, with options for another four, to 20 years, was allowed under exceptions to state requirements. As part of the extension, MTC agreed to expand the treatment facility in Littlefield, saving the state $23 million in construction costs.
TCCO Deputy Director Jessica L. Marsh told us the expansion is necessary to accommodate the growing number of sexually violent predators being housed at the facility, which is at 98% capacity. About 34 clients are added each year, but only 18 have been released from commitment since 2016, she said.
Treatment takes a long time, said Marsh: “There is no magic pill or easy solution to address the years or decades of ingrained, deviant behaviors and thoughts.”
As for that “C” rating, the audit found it was mostly because of a sharp decline in client attendance at required weekly group therapy sessions: from 98% in 2021 to 70% in 2022.
But Marsh said the contract extension, though not implemented until 2022, was actually negotiated in 2020, when MTC received a “B” rating. Also MTC’s performance has improved so far in 2023, she said.
We get that oversight of sexually violent predators is a difficult balancing act of ensuring public safety, protecting client rights and adhering to state contracting requirements. But the TCCO must avoid such auditing problems in the future.
It doesn’t need the distraction from its important mandate of overseeing this frightening and extremely dangerous population.
--Dallas Morning News editorials are written by the paper's Editorial Board and serve as the voice and view of the paper. The board considers a broad range of topics and is overseen by the Editorial Page Editor.
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Dallas Morning News | July 31, 2023
Letters to the Editor - Rep. Jeff Leach, violent predators, Texas leaders
Readers agree with editorial praising Rep. Jeff Leach; believe we need to be careful in how we handle violent predators; wish Gov. Abbott would work more with the federal government; and comment on legislators recognizing Ken Paxton’s true colors.
Punished for future behavior
Re: “State Agency, Please Pay Attention — Contract with vendor that manages facility for sexually violent predators was mishandled,” July 17 editorial.
This editorial faults the Texas Civil Commitment Office and its Littlefield detention center for ignoring administrative statutes. You correctly note that TCCO’s job is to disappear men convicted of sex offenses who have finished prison because we consider them “too dangerous to be let back on the streets.”
That violates a central founding principle: No one will be punished for future behavior. Honest observers know civil commitment is de facto double jeopardy under the pretense of treatment. If such treatment were effective, it would start from the first day of prison so subjects would be “cured” by release.
From TCCO’s Littlefield, they are never released. The problem with predictive sentencing is that it doesn’t distinguish between those who will re-offend and those who won’t, making a mockery of the most basic notion of justice.
Preventive detention is blatantly un-American. Not following guidelines is the least of TCCO’s faults. Civil commitment panders to fearmongers. Either we have the courage of our founding principles as a free society that deals justly with everyone, or we don’t. TCCO doesn’t. We must continue to shine a bright light on the TCCO-Littlefield black hole.
Philip Taylor, Dallas
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Texas State Auditor Report No. 23-034, June 2023
Audit Report on Contract Management at the Texas Civil Commitment Office (TCCO)
https://sao.texas.gov/Reports/Main/23-034.pdf
Texas Civil Commitment Office’s (TCCO) 9 page response to the Audit begins on page 33.
Texas State Auditor Report No. 15-018 January 2015
An Audit Report on The Office of Violent Sex Offender Management
https://sao.texas.gov/Reports/Main/15-018.pdf
