Final Blog Assignment

The Texas Youth Commision, TYC, fired their director of juvenile corrections, Lydia Baird, for failing to take appropriate actions against a school superintendent accused of sexually abusing inmates. The Dallas Morning News, The Denton Record Chronicle, and The Austin Chronicle have all reported wrong doing at the TYC. This is not the first time Lydia Baird had a chance to address a sexual abuse issue with this superintendent. It has been a reoccuring issue and she had many chances to address the issue. The TYC posted only four press releases on their website. The latest one was announcing an abuse hotline made available for people to call to report any problems. The first released since Lydia was demoted in January was posted March 1, 2007. It was released to employees making them aware of problems at the TYC and that they will see things written in newspapers and need to stay dedicated to their work. Another was released the same day to the public announcing the new executive director and his background inofrmation. The TYC then released to the press a time when the TYC was holding a board meeting and when the new director would be available for comments. I believe that the TYC did a bad job dealing with this issue. The board meeting should have been held last year. Not two months after the fact. It had been going on for too long to continue to aviod. There was definitely a lack of response to this issue. As soon as it came out, the TYC should have posted an immediate response on their website. The only thing posted was a number to the abuse hot line which makes it look like there is a huge demand for this hot line. To me it makes matters worse. They should have posted a response and a solution to the problem and then had the hot line posted.