The first time I heard about “restorative justice” was during the summer before my senior year of high school, on my first day at TCJC. I was an eager-to-please Policy Associate (and very much still am, just now under a different title!), and I was excited to get my first glimpse into the policy world. Over the coming months, I would spend a large part of my time at TCJC poring over research about restorative justice.
Dallas has historically been a tale of two cities: one Black and one white. This problem exists to this day, especially when it comes to the divide in education, policing, and housing. South and West Dallas contain the highest concentration of Black and Latinx citizens.
Last updated: August 29, 2019
It’s Sine Die – the last day of legislative session – and TCJC is thrilled that so many positive bills have progressed to the Governor’s desk. A few have already become law!
The Governor now has a 20-day period to review the bills and either sign them into law, let them pass into law without his signature, or veto them.
As I visited several classrooms of students participating in the Gang Renouncement and Disassociation (GRAD) process at the Ellis Unit in Huntsville, Texas, I couldn’t help but remember my time in the same program at the Ramsey Unit in Rosharon, Texas, in 2010. I shared those experiences with the men in Ellis and told them how much of an impact my cognitive intervention teacher, Ms. Kathy Gant, had had on my life.
I recently visited a group of boys in the Youthful Offender Program (YOP). They’re all under 18 years old but they’ve been incarcerated in Texas’ adult prison system at the Texas Department of Criminal Justice’s Ellis Unit in Huntsville. We enjoyed Domino’s pizza (the chicken and mushroom is the big hit) and asked each other ice-breaker questions. It was a positive experience talking with the kids. Still, it was difficult to deal with – these boys were wearing the same white uniform worn by adults in the Texas prison system.
“My survival has largely been fueled by hope of a second chance at life, and I am living proof that youthful offenders are not beyond hope or rehabilitation.” Chon Dimas, sentenced to 75 years at 17 years old
On July 16th, I traveled to Durham, North Carolina, to attend the National Juvenile Justice Network’s annual conference. After checking into my hotel, I headed to the downtown Durham County Detention Center, where I joined dozens of other people from around the country who had gathered to hold a vigil in honor of Niecey Fennell, a 17-year-old girl who died while being held in the adult detention center.
In true Texas fashion, some coworkers and I spent Friday night beneath the bright lights of a high school football stadium. Giddings State School—one of five state-run secure detention facilities for kids in Texas—faced off against Hill Country Christian School of Austin in their first football game of the season.
I watched an LGBTQ Pride Parade for the first time in New York City in June 2008. I was 20 years old and in the middle of my undergraduate degree at a small college in the Midwest. A group of friends and I drove over 1,000 miles to spend two days in New York, basking in the one of the world’s largest celebrations of love, self-expression, and community. As a young gay college student, I had already experienced the rejection from family and friends, stigma from society, and outright anti-LGBTQ discrimination that most LGBTQ people must endure throughout their lifetime.
I remember my time on probation in 2007. When the prosecutor offered a plea agreement for 10 years deferred adjudication, I felt as though my life had been handed back to me. Ten months earlier, I had been arrested for handing a note to a bank teller asking for $500, driven by my desperation to feed a drug addiction. At that point, I assumed that I would not breathe free air again until I was a very old man. The probation sentence seemed to be such a priceless gift.
