AUSTIN - A South Texas juvenile corrections facility run by the Texas Youth Commission is so "chaotic and dangerous" that it violates the constitutional rights of the youth incarcerated there, the U.S. Justice Department told state officials Thursday.

Youth-on-youth assaults at the Evins Regional Juvenile Center in Edinburg are five times the national average, the report said, and in one instance last year a corrections officer tried to subdue an unruly youth by pushing his eyes "back into his face."

A 14-page letter from Justice officials to Gov. Rick Perry detailed repeated patterns of violence that injured both youths and corrections officers at Evins. The report said the facility is poorly designed, insufficiently staffed and has corrections officers who are poorly trained.

The letter said if the problems are not fixed within 49 days, the department's Civil Rights Division may file suit against Texas to bring the facility into compliance.

There were 187 males in the Evins unit Thursday. Of those, 44 were from Harris County; 31 from Bexar; 13 from Hidalgo; and 10 each from Cameron and Travis counties.

The report hit the state on the eve of the planned mass resignation of the TYC governing board. The six sitting members are scheduled to submit their resignations today after approving a "rehabilitation" plan for the agency drafted by acting Executive Director Ed Owens.

Perry agreed to the resignation of his board appointees Wednesday after the Senate passed a bill to abolish the board and the House cast a procedural vote in support.

Perry spokesman Ted Royer said Owens' rehabilitation plan will address all of the Justice Department's concerns.

State Sen. Juan Hinojosa, D-McAllen, said the Justice Department investigation was prompted by a complaint filed last year by juvenile justice advocates.

Hinojosa said the Senate Criminal Justice Committee found many of the same problems when it investigated the facility last year, but he said the TYC leadership tried to downplay what was happening.

"A lot of this was covered up by management in Austin," Hinojosa said. "Every time we would question them, they would lie to us and tell us everything is all right."

Hinojosa said the problems at Evins can be found in every TYC unit in the state.

In fact, the special team investigating TYC facilities arrested a juvenile corrections officer Thursday at the Ron Jackson Unit in Brownwood. Dusty R. Ogle, 47, a TYC employee with nine years of service, was charged with tampering with a government document, official oppression and aggravated assault with serious bodily injury, said TYC spokesman Jim Hurley.

Hurley said the arrest stemmed from a March 6 altercation in which a corrections officer used excessive force against a female inmate and altered a use-of-force report.

The Justice Department report said a state has a constitutional duty to protect youths it incarcerates.

"We find that Evins fails to adequately protect the youth in its care from youth and staff violence," said the letter from Assistant Attorney General Wan J. Kim.

Many of Evins' problems are caused by too few staff with too little training who often are overworked, creating "an unacceptably high degree of physical abuse of youths by staff."

The Justice Department investigators found instances in which staff had slammed youths' heads on the ground or allowed gang members to beat another youth.

Part of the problem occurs because staff are trying to guard youths in open dorms at Evins.

"When staff feel outnumbered and stretched too thin, they are more likely to apply extra force during a restraint to emphasize to the youth that non-compliant behavior will not be tolerated," the report said.

Several Texas legislators said Thursday that they are considering a $4.4 million emergency appropriation to pay counties to house 300-600 youthful offenders so the population of the dysfunctional TYC system can be reduced.

"If the agency is unsafe for kids, then we certainly shouldn't be sending them there," said Rep. Sylvester Turner, D-Houston, who is on the joint legislative committee that is crafting a TYC overhaul.

Turner and several other key legislators said one of the first steps to repairing TYC should be reducing the number of youths it incarcerates.

One of the ways to do that is to contract with county-run facilities overseen by the Texas Juvenile Probation Commission. They estimate the county facilities have about 600 empty beds at present.

The lawmakers said they also want TYC to consider releasing or paroling youths who are in TYC facilities on misdemeanor charges. Those youths make up about 30 percent of the 8,112 who live in either state-run TYC facilities or those run by private companies for the state on a contract basis.

"TYC needs to be kept for the people who really need incarceration," said Sen. John Whitmire, D-Houston, chairman of the Criminal Justice Committee.

Some lawmakers also are considering legislation to lower from 21 to 19 the age at which a youth becomes eligible for transfer from the juvenile system to the adult prison system managed by the Texas Department of Criminal Justice.

House Corrections Chairman Jerry Madden said that age change would have a substantial impact on TYC in the future. About 1,500 of the youths incarcerated in TYC are 19 or 20 years old.

VIOLENT CULTURE

Bad behavior: The report said youth-on-youth assaults occur at a rate of almost three a day and the number probably is much higher because the department knows only of reported assaults.

No incentives: The rehabilitation system at the facility offers no incentives for youths to behave positively.