Texas Juvenile Justice Director Resigns Two Months Into a Lockdown of All Five Youth Prisons

The head of the Texas agency that runs the state's five youth prisons has resigned.

Texas Juvenile Justice Department Executive Director Shandra Carter stepped down Friday from the job she had held since 2022, The Texas Tribune reported. The reason was not immediately clear. Her departure comes just over two months after the agency put all of its youth prisons under an extended lockdown following an assault on a juvenile correctional officer in August. KUT first reported the resignation.

Who is in charge now

Deputy Executive Director Sean Grove will serve as interim leader while the TJJD board plans an executive search, Board Chair Manny Ramirez said.

"We appreciate Shandra Carter's many years of service to TJJD and our state and look forward to continuing the work to make TJJD the best juvenile justice agency in the nation," Ramirez said in a statement to the Tribune. He did not immediately answer questions about why Carter resigned. Chief of Staff Nathan McDaniel confirmed the resignation but declined further comment.

A hard four years

Carter took the top job on an interim basis in April 2022, after her predecessor quit without notice hours after Gov. Greg Abbott announced he would divert millions of dollars from the agency's budget to his border security effort. At the time, the Tribune reported, the agency was "hemorrhaging" staff and had to temporarily stop taking in youth.

The U.S. Justice Department was also investigating. In 2024 it reported finding unconstitutional conditions in all five facilities, where youth were routinely exposed to excessive force and sexual abuse, and said the agency failed to provide adequate mental health services and special education. TJJD said then it had a zero-tolerance policy for abuse and was making "significant improvements" in hiring and training.

In recent years the agency has reported better staffing, though shortages and high turnover persist. It also says it is taking in more youth with higher needs, especially for aggression and mental health treatment.

The lockdown and the new lockups

Carter defended the lockdown at the board's Aug. 21 meeting, calling it a necessary step to operate safely after an assault that left a correctional officer hospitalized. She said it did not violate the youth's rights.

Advocates disagreed. They pointed to reported self-harm and delayed care during the lockdown as civil rights violations. Earlier this month, TJJD broke ground on two new facilities, in Ellis and Brazoria counties, meant for youth with "the highest levels of mental and behavioral health needs" and those with "high-risk and violent behavioral profiles," the agency said.

"Celebrating new construction while children in existing facilities are harming themselves during statewide lockdowns is indefensible," said Sarah Beebe, supervising staff attorney at the Texas Civil Rights Project. Juvenile justice advocates have for years urged Texas to close its youth prisons in favor of community-based treatment.

What Texans should ask

There are two duties here, and both are real. Officers who walk those halls deserve to go home safe, and a lockdown after one of them is hospitalized is not hard to understand. The young people inside are also the state's responsibility. Many have done serious wrong, and some are dangerous. They are still children made in God's image, and the state that locks them up owes them safety, schooling and care.

The next director will inherit both duties, and the board should explain plainly why this one left. Texas is also sending more young children into the system through the schoolhouse door. A recent analysis found school police referred thousands of 10- to 13-year-olds for prosecution, mostly for minor offenses.

Scripture asks, "Remember them that are in bonds, as bound with them" (Hebrews 13:3). Lawmakers return in January. Texans should expect them to ask what is happening inside those five facilities, and what the new lockups will do differently.