by DAVID KAISER and LOVISA STANNOW
Summary Report for Administrative Review
by Tish Elliott-Wilkins
Texas Youth Commission, Office of the General Counsel, 14 pp. (2005)
Report of Investigation
by Brian Burzynski
Texas Department of Public Safety, Texas Ranger Division, redacted version, 229 pp. (2005)
Sexual Victimization in Juvenile Facilities Reported by Youth, 2008–09
by Allen J. Beck, Paige M. Harrison, and Paul Guerino
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 49 pp. (2010)
Sexual Victimization in State and Federal Prisons Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 48 pp. (2007)
Sexual Victimization in Local Jails Reported by Inmates, 2007
by Allen J. Beck and Paige M. Harrison
Bureau of Justice Statistics, 43 pp. (2008)
National Prison Rape Elimination Commission Report
National Prison Rape Elimination Commission, 259 pp. (2009)
Adults who want to have sex with children sometimes look for jobs that will make it easy. They want authority over kids, but no very onerous supervision; they also want positions that will make them seem more trustworthy than their potential accusers. Such considerations have infamously led quite a few pedophiles to sully the priesthood over the years, but the priesthood isn’t for everyone. For some people, moral authority comes less naturally than blunter, more violent kinds.
Ray Brookins worked for the Texas Youth Commission (TYC), the state’s juvenile detention agency. In October 2003, he was hired as head of security at the West Texas State School in Pyote. Like most TYC facilities, it’s a remote place. The land is flat to the horizon, scattered with slowly bobbing oil derricks, and always windy. It’s a long way from the families of most kids confined there, who tend to be urban and poor; a long way from any social services, or even the police. It must have seemed perfect to Brookins—and also to John Paul Hernandez, who was hired as the school’s principal around the same time. Almost immediately, Brookins started pulling students out of their dorms at night, long after curfew, and bringing them to the administration building. When asked why, he said it was for cleaning.[1]
New York Review of Books for more