What should be done with minors who kill, maim, defile, and destroy the lives of others? The state of Texas deals with some of its most serious and violent youthful offenders through “determinate sentencing,” a unique sentencing structure that blends parts of the juvenile and adult justice systems. Once adjudicated via determinate sentencing, offenders are first incarcerated in the Texas Youth Commission (TYC). As they approach age eighteen, they are either transferred to the Texas prison system to serve the remainder of their original determinate sentence or released from TYC into Texas’s communities.
The first long-term study of determinate sentencing in Texas, Lost Causes examines the social and delinquent histories, institutionalization experiences, and release and recidivism outcomes of more than 3,000 serious and violent juvenile offenders who received such sentences between 1987 and 2011. The authors seek to understand the process, outcomes
Table of Contents
Foreword by James W. Marquart
Acknowledgments
Introduction
Determinate Sentencing and the Texas Youth Commission: A Timeline
1. Origins and Discoveries
2. The Determinate Sentencing Act in Texas
3. The Sheep That Got Lost
4. Doing Time in the Texas Youth Commission
5. Another Second Chance
6. The Burden of Second Chances
7. Three Decades Later
8. The Last Word
Notes
Index
