Commissioner Andy Sommerman will now serve on the Dallas County Juvenile Board.
This comes in the wake of a dire assessment of the county’s processes for handling children accused of crimes. For example, the average Dallas County youth who is in detention at the time a case is formally petitioned was there more than 130 days before the was concluded — a much higher average than national model standards and peer counties in Texas.
“It’s an emergency. It’s a crisis,” Commissioner Elba Garcia said.
Garcia voted to appoint Commissioner Andy Sommerman to the county’s juvenile board. She joined Sommerman and County Judge Clay Jenkins in approving the switch.
The other two commissioners, John Wiley Price and Theresa Daniel, voted no. It was a rare three-to-two vote on the five-Democrat panel.
Sommerman’s appointment means Price, a member of the board for 20 years and the current vice-chair, will no longer serve on it. Price promised to continue to show up at the board’s meetings.
“I will register for every item and speak to it,” he vowed.
The report on the juvenile system, from the research firm Evident Change, came at the request of Dallas County District Attorney John Creuzot. It described a system that is slow to process children accused of crimes and that entered them into a formal court proceeding over 90% of the time.
The report found at least half of the children in custody at the time the DA’s office decided on a course of action were low risk.
“The results suggest that Dallas County is operating within a juvenile justice processing model like those found in adult criminal justice processing systems,” the report concluded. It said this kind of system leads to worse outcomes for children who need help.
By law, the juvenile board members in Dallas include the county judge (Jenkins), one commissioner appointed by the full commissioners court, the county’s two juvenile court judges, the local administrative judge, three district court judges, and the chairman of the youth services advisory board.
Judge Cheryl Shannon, the chair of the juvenile board, had no comment on the decision of the commissioners’ court.
In explaining her vote, Garcia said she wanted to try something different to see if communication around the juvenile system improves.
“Do we want to continue what we have been doing for the last 15 years or do we want some change?” she asked her colleagues.
During Tuesday’s meeting, Price noted the majority of the children in the juvenile detention center were Black or Latino, and that his Southern Dallas district contained the largest percentage of Black residents.
“This is another one of those great white hope moves,” Price said.
Price is Black. Jenkins, Sommerman, and Daniel are white, and Garcia is Latina.
Daniel said she had considered being the court’s appointee, but instead wanted to “tap the brake just a minute so that we can assess where are we today, and what are better ways for us to move forward?”
“Each of us wants what’s best for Dallas County,” Daniel said.
