The Office of the Inspector General of the Texas Juvenile Justice Department issued the following press release Friday:

On May 19, 2022, Inspectors with the Office of the Inspector General (OIG) at the Texas Juvenile Justice Department (TJJD) arrested a Juvenile Supervision Officer (JSO) Devan Scott Denton (26) on a misdemeanor warrant for one count of Official Oppression. Denton was booked into the Brown County Jail by OIG Inspectors without incident. This offense is a Class A Misdemeanor under the Tex. Pen. Code Chapter 39.03. If convicted, this offense is punishable by imprisonment in the county jail for up to 1 year and up to a $4,000 fine.

The arrest warrant emanated from an investigation conducted by the OIG of an incident reported in April 2022. While employed as a JSO at The Oaks, a private juvenile correctional facility in Brownwood, Texas, Denton is believed to have subjected a 15 YOA juvenile offender to excessive force during the commission of his official duties. The case will be referred to the Texas Special Prosecution Unit.

The Office of the Inspector General is the independent law enforcement agency that is statutorily responsible for investigating criminal allegations involving TJJD juveniles, TJJD employees, TJJD facilities, contractors, or programs of the Texas juvenile justice system. Anyone can report allegations of misconduct to the Incident Reporting Center by emailing a complaint to [email protected], or finally by calling a 24-hour-a-day toll free hotline 1-866-477-8354. Historical TJJD incident data can be found on the Open Data Portal of Texas.gov https://data.texas.gov/dataset/Incident_Reporting/d5x8-xxfd.