Will Dallas County officials finally reckon with the troubled juvenile department now that its leader has resigned?
Victoria Halstead wipes away after talking about her 17-year-old son being held at a Dallas County detention center in the Henry Wade Juvenile Justice Center in April 2023 in Dallas. She and Ashley Lively , a mother of a 15-year-old detained boy, made allegations about inadequate conditions and care of the kids living inside.
Then came a state inquiry into allegations of neglect, soon after a June 2023 investigation by this newspaper highlighted concerns by multiple parents and staff whistleblowers who saidAt the time, this newspaper reported a revealing exchange among members of the Juvenile Board about the isolation allegations.
Commissioner John Wiley Price, who sat on the Juvenile Board until early 2023 and who defended Beatty from the Commissioners Court dais, said the right thing had happened with the Juvenile Board reporting allegations to state regulators and allowing the state investigations to play out. He noted that Beatty had dealt with high staff vacancy rates but acknowledged concerns with his performance.
That explanation rings hollow to us. The Juvenile Board is not powerless to investigate, and the abundance and severity of the complaints should have sparked an internal review.plainly authorizes it to “make any special studies or investigations it considers necessary to improve the operations” of the juvenile department and county institutions under its jurisdiction.
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