Judge plans to levy "substantial fines" after Texas failed to comply with court-ordered fixes to its

Judge plans to levy “substantial fines” after Texas failed to comply with court-ordered fixes to its foster care system

by Reese Oxner, Texas Tribune


U.S. District Judge Janis Jack said Monday she plans to levy “substantial fines” against Texas for failing to comply with her orders to fix its troubled foster care system.

Jack said she’d announce at a later time a contempt hearing with a jury to consider sanctions. The state has already been sanctioned twice for violating the judge’s orders.

“I’m looking at substantial fines for contempt enough that you need to know you’re entitled to a jury trial,” Jack said. “I think the public would like to know in a jury trial about these goings-on.”

Jack said she was looking to sanction Texas in particular over the high rate of children who are sexually victimized or revictimized in foster care and the state’s failure in several areas, including its inability to properly punish or shut down unsafe child care placement facilities; to report incidents in which a child is made unsafe; and to obtain approval before placing children in facilities on “heightened monitoring,” a probationary status that requires the state to more closely scrutinize a facility’s operations and put it on an improvement plan.

Read more: https://www.texastribune.org/2022/06/06/texas-foster-care-sanctions/