AUSTIN – Every time Sarah Toliver Jenkins visited her adult brother at one of Texas' state schools for the mentally retarded, he bore marks of a new injury: stitches snaking across his head, bruises on his arm, broken ribs or a busted lip. It was par for the course, the employees always told her, for someone who suffered seizures as severe as his.
But in February 2003, when the family drove from Dallas to the Lubbock State School to visit the 35-year-old, they found an appalling scene. He was lying partially clothed on a recliner, his underwear and socks soaked in urine, in front of an open door – unresponsive as gusts of cold winter wind blew over him.
"He'd been there for hours. My mother was just crying and crying," Ms. Jenkins said. "We never saw him awake again. They diagnosed him with pneumonia, and he died three weeks later."
The Jenkinses still want to know who's to blame – and they are seeking legal recourse for a death they believe was caused by neglect inside the facility. But they're not optimistic.
A Dallas Morning News investigation into employee disciplinary records this week found hundreds of cases of abuse at the hands of those charged with caring for the mentally retarded – everything from extreme physical violence to flagrant neglect. But the state Department of Aging and Disability Services, which oversees the schools, and the Department of Family and Protective Services, which runs abuse investigations for the agency, don't keep records on whether criminal charges are filed in confirmed cases of abuse.
Little fear of criminal punishment, combined with low-paid staffers who receive only cursory training, appear to create an environment in which abuse can thrive, advocates say.
District attorneys in counties with state schools say that while many confirmed cases of abuse or neglect cross their desk, only a few are severe enough – or clear-cut enough – to prosecute.
"Some make it to court, and some don't," said James Eidson, district attorney of Taylor County, home to the Abilene State School.
The News' analysis of recent employee disciplinary records shows more than 100 cases of confirmed abuse at the school since 2001.
"I get a mountain of investigations; it's an industry people find a way into, even when they shouldn't have the job," said Mr. Eidson, who said he prosecutes only two or three state-school cases a year. "But you have to ask yourself, is it a prosecutable offense?"
Meanwhile, families of victims say they're left with no recourse, only questions about how the person who abused their relative got hired in the first place.
In 2002, Kevin Miller, an employee at the Denton State School, punched, kicked and slammed resident Hasib Chishty to the brink of death while coming down from a drug-induced rage.
The school first tried to tell Mr. Chishty's parents that he had been injured by a seat belt in a van and that he wasn't taken to the hospital for more than a day. By the time Mr. Miller confessed to the beating years later – and to the fact that he and other employees on his shift had been using crack, marijuana, valium and a slew of other narcotics at work – Mr. Chishty was nearly paralyzed.
Now 34, Mr. Chishty is confined to a wheelchair and must be fed through a tube. He remains at the Denton State School while family members pursue legal options.
"There are so many residents, and there are so few care aides that have any education or training or experience to deal with special people like this," said Kelly Reddell, the attorney representing the Chishty family.
Though there's debate among advocates for the disabled over the best setting for the mentally retarded, agency officials say the state schools are necessary because they cater to the toughest cases – individuals who need the most consistent, intensive care. But some longtime state school employees say that while the majority of staffers are committed to serving these fragile residents, circumstances often keep them from getting the care they need.
State schools are often so short staffed – the result of budget cuts over the last several years – that residents must endure long waits to have diapers changed, they say, and employees are unable to manage temper tantrums or attempted escapes.
And starting salaries are so low – less than $20,000 a year, in most cases – that it's impossible to attract the best workers or set the bar high. Working in a state school requires two weeks of training and passage of drug screening and criminal history checks, but not a high school diploma. The schools have more than 11,000 employees.
When Ashley Robinson received her high school diploma in December, she was living in her mother's North Texas home and had held only one job, at Chuck E. Cheese. When she saw an entry-level job at the Denton State School, she thought, "I can totally do that." She was hired immediately.
Ms. Robinson said she knew at once that something wasn't right. She was rushed through the training and asked to sign paperwork saying she was ready to begin, she said, even though she was far from comfortable. On her first day working in the dorm, she watched her colleagues scramble, factory-style, to dress residents and brush their teeth for them – even those who were more than capable of doing it themselves.
Her breaking point came quickly, when a colleague who had been bitten by a resident yanked the woman by the hair to hold her down.
"I had to quit," said Ms. Robinson, 19, who left the Denton State School after a month and is back working full time at Chuck E. Cheese. "The job was pretty much everything negative I've heard. People shouldn't be treated like that."
Officials at the state agency say they're always trying to improve working conditions but argue that it's impossible to prevent all abuse in a direct-care environment.
Lawmakers say they're not sure whether allegations of abuse are the result of employees being overworked or the agency hiring the wrong people. After the U.S. Justice Department found civil-rights violations at the Lubbock State School, they set aside $49 million to hire close to 1,700 new employees for the facilities – with the assurance, Sen. Bob Deuell said, that the "increase in funding would be enough to do the job."
In light of the latest abuse reports and without the Legislature in session to put the pressure on, the Greenville Republican and family physician said, he's not sure it will.
"I'm just sick about it," Dr. Deuell said. "I know it's hard at that wage level, when people feel underpaid and overworked. But there's no excuse. This has to change."
A spokeswoman for the Department of Justice said the federal agency is still negotiating with the state and hopes to resolve the Lubbock problems without litigation in the coming months. But she declined to comment on whether the investigation might expand to other schools.
But victims' families and disability rights advocates say it ought to take serious legal action – not just suspension or firing – to teach abusive employees a lesson.
The Department of Family and Protective Services, which conducts the official investigations into all allegations of abuse, sends all reports back to state school superintendents to determine punishment. And they pass the worst – those that involve children, serious physical injury, sexual abuse or death – along to local police departments or to the district attorney's office for possible prosecution.
But when the majority of residents inside state schools don't have guardians, the pressure's off, said Jeff Garrison-Tate of Advocacy Inc., which supports moving all state school residents back into small community facilities.
"Who's going to do anything?" he asked. "Some of these people have been out there 30 or 40 years. These are the forgotten lives, the people who have been tucked away out of sight, out of mind."
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