A Senate bill currently being considered would change a Texas law to allow 15-year old offenders to be sent to state prisons for adults.
The age currently is 16.
That change would apply to felons already in the state juvenile system who commit a second felony, like assaulting staff, or for "delinquent conduct."
Senate Bill 1727 and a companion House bill are intended to help protect staff from violent juveniles.
Brett Merfish, Youth Justice Director for the Texas Appleseed organization, said the suggested law change gives children fewer chances than adults.
Texas has a "three-strike" rule for adult felons.
"It doesn’t' allow for considering this child hit an officer while they're being restrained, or, maybe they had an outburst because of a mental health condition," she said. "And let's say they did kick or hit an officer, but there was no injury and the intent wasn't to hurt them. It doesn't allow for any of that. It just says, 'Okay — assault on a public servant, you're out of here, you are going to the adult system.' "
As of May 1, there were 29 juvenile inmates in the Youth Offender Program within Texas prisons.
The Texas Juvenile Justice Department oversees young criminal offender programs and detention centers, including five correctional facilities and three halfway houses.
About 700 juveniles as young as age 10 were in TJJD custody as of last summer, according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
Of those, about 80 percent are Black or Latino.
Amnisty Freelen's son, Joshua Beasley, Jr., was 11 when he first entered the juvenile system for spray painting a Paris, Texas church with other boys.
A month after he turned 16, he was transferred to the Wayne Scott Unit adult prison.
Six months later, in March 2023, he wrapped a sheet around his neck and died in his cell.
"In the adult system, Josh is the youngest person to die," Freelen said.
She said youths in detention and detention officers deserve protection.
Recently, a Dallas County juvenile detention officer was severely injured by a female in custody who was younger than 15.
She was treated at Parkland Hospital for more than a week.
The officer, who has been with the county for six months, was injured on April 7.
The juvenile reportedly had assaulted staff before, according to one county official.
Dallas County Commissioner John Wiley Price had acknowledged the injured detention officer while addressing many officers present during commissioners court's recognition of National Correction Officers Week, which is May 4-10.
"I just want to say just thank you because I don't think [people] can really have the appreciation," he said. "I spent this weekend — not because of what happened in the adult system, but because of the juvenile system — at Parkland Hospital.
Merfish said a few situations should not influence legislation.
"What I worry about is making policy based on anecdotes, based on that outlier," she said. "Most kids at the county are not assaulting officers. And when I do hear about that and I ask probation chiefs, they say those are isolated incidents where kids are having problems regulating because maybe their medicine's off or maybe they're having a mental health episode.
"Because what happens is, for the kid where it is a mental health episode or where it is that they aren't getting what they need or that they maybe need more intervention, then we're just gonna come down with some sledgehammer on them because of one incident that happened?"
Serious incidents must be reported to the Texas Juvenile Justice Department.
That agency investigated 143 juvenile assaults on employees statewide from September 1 to November 30, 2024.
Sen. Charles Perry (R-Lubbock) authored the bill, which is now working its way through the House of Representatives.
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