Texas Tough

Since the Texas Observer broke the story in early 2007, Texas’s political leaders have been scrambling to put distance between themselves and leaders of the Texas Youth Commission, who were either participating in the sexual abuse of juvenile detainees or looking the other way. The scandal has generated a blizzard of news coverage, but few commentators have looked back to the 1970s, when the same agency was found guilty of the same abuses–and then some. For an eye-opening tour through the more unpleasant corners of the past, see this opinion written by the legendary federal judge, William Wayne Justice: Morales v. Turman, 383 F.Supp 53 (1974).