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Pope tells Lege Will Harrell's solitary confinement criticisms ill-informed

By Gritsforbreakfast

TYC acting executive director Dimitria Pope claimed today at a legislative hearing that allegations by TYC Ombudsman Will Harrell about overuse of solitary confinement at the agency were simply erroneous, and implied he might have even lied about visiting the Mart facility (he "supposedly" visited the unit, she said). Chair Sylvester Turner interrupted Ms. Pope to ask Harrell to defend his position in the face of her criticisms, and I thought he did a good job.From what I've seen of the BMP program, where kids are kept in setting that differs little from a straight-up dungeon - Will probably went light on the agency in his report. Perhaps predictably, Ms. Pope blamed her employees for poor record keeping but said no policies were violated.Given that the federal government named the Behavioral Management Program (the euphemism for solitary confinement) as one of the problems that necessitated the proposed "Agreed Order" announced this week, it seems unlikely that the program is working as well as Ms...continue to full post

Full post as published by Grits for Breakfast on February 06, 2008 (boomark / email).