A powerful, bracing and deeply spiritual look at intensely, troubled
youth, Last Chance in Texas gives a stirring account of the way one
remarkable prison rehabilitates its inmates.
While reporting on the juvenile court system, journalist John Hubner
kept hearing about a facility in Texas that ran the most aggressive-and
one of the most successful-treatment programs for violent young
offenders in America. How was it possible, he wondered, that a state
like Texas, famed for its hardcore attitude toward crime and punishment,
could be leading the way in the rehabilitation of violent and troubled
youth?
Now Hubner shares the surprising answers he found over months of
unprecedented access to the Giddings State School, home to "the worst of
the worst" four hundred teenage lawbreakers convicted of crimes ranging
from aggravated assault to murder. Hubner follows two of these youths-a
boy and a girl-through harrowing group therapy sessions in which they,
along with their fellow inmates, recount their crimes and the abuse they
suffered as children. The key moment comes when the young offenders
reenact these soul-shattering moments with other group members in
cathartic outpourings of suffering and anger that lead, incredibly, to
genuine remorse and the beginnings of true empathy . . . the first steps
on the long road to redemption.
Cutting through the political platitudes surrounding the controversial
issue of juvenile justice, Hubner lays bare the complex ties between
abuse and violence. By turns wrenching and uplifting, Last Chance in
Texas tells a profoundly moving story about the children who grow up
to inflict on others the violence that they themselves have suffered. It
is a story of horror and heartbreak, yet ultimately full of hope.
