Dallas juvenile detention center isolated kids and falsified documents, state investigation says

Officers at a juvenile detention center in Dallas kept kids isolated for days and falsified logs of observation checks and school attendance, an investigation from the Texas Juvenile Justice Department found.

State investigators say that staffers at the Dr. Jerome McNeil Jr. Detention Center used the Special Needs Unit to circumvent state law and essentially keep juveniles in their sleeping quarters for extended periods of time.

“They spent the vast majority of their days inside their cells, sometimes up to 24 hours a day, without regular access to education, large muscle exercise, outdoor recreation, or showers,” state investigators wrote in a report released Monday.

The full investigation was not made public, though TJJD provided the investigation’s executive summary.

The agency’s Office of the Inspector General said that they will continue to monitor the situation. Also, a division of the agency will continue to have oversight duties and responsibilities related to allegations of wrongdoing at Dallas County’s juvenile facilities. The superintendent of the detention center did not respond to requests for comment.

Officers also falsified documents meant to record observation checks and school attendance in order to conceal the actual practices occurring in the detention facility, the investigation found. OIG investigators collected over 18,000 pages of observation checks from January 2023 to June 2023. However, there were 176 of the 191 observation sheets missing for multiple dates and shifts.

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