Journal of Legislation Volume 42 | Issue 2 Article 5 5-27-2016 Juvenile Justice Reform in Texas: The onC text, Content & Consequences of Senate Bill 1630 Sara A. Gordon Follow this and additional works at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/jleg Part of the Criminal Law Commons, Criminal Procedure Commons, Family Law Commons, Human Rights Law Commons, Juvenile Law Commons, and the Legislation Commons Recommended Citation Sara A. Gordon, Juvenile Justice Reform in Texas: The Context, Content & Consequences of Senate Bill 1630, 42 J. Legis. 232 (2016). Available at: http://scholarship.law.nd.edu/jleg/vol42/iss2/5 This Note is brought to you for free and open access by the Journal of Legislation at NDLScholarship. It has been accepted for inclusion in Journal of Legislation by an authorized administrator of NDLScholarship. For more information, please contact
[email protected]. JUVENILE JUSTICE REFORM IN TEXAS: THE CONTEXT, CONTENT & CONSEQUENCES OF SENATE BILL 1630 Sara A. Gordon* INTRODUCTION In 2003, Jimmy Martinez, a resident of San Antonio, entered the Texas criminal justice system after missing his school bus.1 Charged with truancy and destruction of property, Jimmy was sent to live in a county juvenile detention center for six months.2 Five months into his sentence, he was transferred to a secure state facility four hun- dred miles from his home and managed by the Texas Youth Commission (hereinafter TYC) (now the Texas Juvenile Justice Department).3 While a prisoner of that facil- ity, Jimmy witnessed his best friend’s murder and was regularly