Justice Department finds Texas juvenile detention centers violated youth offenders’ rights

Sign up for The Brief, The Texas Tribune’s daily newsletter that keeps readers up to speed on the most essential Texas news. The U.S. Department of Justice found unconstitutional conditions at all five of Texas’ juvenile detention facilities, where children were exposed to excessive force, sexual abuse and in the case of disabled children, discrimination that kept them in custody longer or sent them to adult prisons. In a report released Thursday, the federal agency detailed the results of its investigation, which began in October 2021, into the Texas Juvenile Justice Department’s facilities.