The Texas Observer:

The U.S. Department of Justice today released a scathing report on conditions in Texas’ 13 large institutions for the mentally retarded.

The facilities — known as state schools, though they’re not schools but rather repositories for the developmentally disabled of all ages — house roughly 5,000 patients and employ 11,000 staffers. They comprise the largest remaining system of mental institutions in the country.

The Department for Justice has been investigating the state schools for more than two years. Justice officials have sent a 60-page report to Gov. Perry’s office, concluding that poor treatment inside the facilities violated residents’ constitutional rights. You can read the AP story about the report here. (When the the full report is posted online, we will link to it.)

There have been numerous media reports of abuse inside the facilities. A six-month Observer investigation revealed horrific incidents of abuse, including a staffer who repeatedly bashed a resident’s head into a metal door. You can read our story here.

However, while there has been severe abuse inside state schools, some media reports have failed to put the abuses in context.

For instance, the Associated Press reported last spring that 800 state school employees had been suspended or fired for mistreating patients since 2004. That sounds awful. But keep in mind that the system employs more than 11,000 workers, and the turnover rate is more than 30 percent. So roughly 20,000 people have worked in state schools since 2004. That means less than 5 percent of the total workforce was suspended or fired. Moreover, staffers can be suspended for incidents as minor as making inappropriate jokes in front of residents. None of which ever excuses the horrific mistreatment that does go on and should be prevented. But some media reports have failed to detail the complex reality inside these institutions.

Some advocates have seized on the abuse reports to call for closure of the entire system. The families of many state school residents desperately want the facilities to remain open.

As we reported last spring, the root problem is a lack of resources.The facilities are understaffed. Employees are underpaid (some direct care staff earn fast-food wages). Turnover rates are high: among direct care staff at the Austin State School in 2007, the turnover rate was 70 percent.

These problems stem from a chronic shortage of funding from the Legislature. There is abuse in state schools. But the larger story — and the one lawmakers must address next session — is that these facilities require greater resources.