TYC bed capacity is expected to top 5,600 by the end of 1999, including 450 beds at a new facility near Waco, set to open in October. Each dollar, TYC says, edges offenders further away from recidivism and returning to prison as adults. TYC officials attribute a resulting reduction in recidivism to the resocialization program, which requires juvenile offenders to take personal responsibility and make amends for misdeeds. The resocialization program addresses basic behavior by requiring the youth to identify thinking errors, learn the components of the offense cycle, understand the choices leading to criminal acts, and to develop victim empathy and appropriate values. For most offenders, length of stay is partly determined by completion of the resocialization program.
Rewards are instrumental in the resocialization program.
For example, a youth can gain additional time in a game room by complying with behavior expectations. Youths released from a TYC facility are supervised by parole officers, who may impose sanctions for parole violations. Parole officers are also required to help families and youth with school attendance and referrals to additional treatment services. More than 2,500 Texas youth were under parole supervision in 1998. Inmate profile TYC reports that its charges increasingly come into state custody with backgrounds of chemical dependency, abuse, neglect and poverty.