The Gainesville State School for juveniles in Gainesville, Texas in 2016. Detainees in Texas’ juvenile prisons suffer from frequent physical and sexual abuse, inadequate mental healthcare and high rates of staff turnover, two youth advocacy groups wrote in a federal complaint. Jae S. Lee/Dallas Morning News via Associated Press, file

AUSTIN, Texas — Youth lockups in Texas remain beset by sexual abuse, excessive use of pepper spray and other mistreatment including the prolonged isolation of children in their cells, the Justice Department said Thursday in a scathing report that accused the state of violating the constitutional rights of hundreds of juveniles in custody.

The report comes three years after the department launched a federal investigation into alleged widespread abuse and harsh practices within the Texas Juvenile Justice Department, which takes in hundreds of young people every year.

Staff in the detention centers have engaged in sexual acts with children, kept some for stretches of 17 to 22 hours of isolation in their cells and pepper sprayed children in their faces, U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said in releasing the report.

Clarke also noted that about 80% of Texas children in the lockups are Black or Hispanic.

“This is a racial justice issue,” she said. “Our children deserve to be protected from harm and access to essential services.”

In a statement, the state juvenile justice department said it has a “zero-tolerance” policy toward abuse and neglect and had worked closely with federal investigators during their site visit in 2022.

Spokespeople for Republican Gov. Greg Abbott’s office did not immediately return emails seeking comment Thursday. The governor’s office said it would cooperate with the federal investigation when it launched.

Mental health concerns, such as suicidal ideation and self-harm, were ignored while children were routinely punished for their behavior, according to the federal report. The facilities’ inability to address or treat these issues was a violation of the Individuals with Disabilities Education Act, officials said during the announcement.

The Justice Department said in the report that it looks forward to cooperating with the state to address the violations while also raising the potential of a federal lawsuit.

“This report makes clear that we are failing our youth, that we are not providing the care they need to be successful,” the founder and chief executive officer of Lone Star Justice Alliance, a youth justice advocacy group, Elizabeth Henneke said. “The Texas legislature has to respond with urgency. It’s not that they haven’t been responding, because they have. But it hasn’t been enough.”

In 2021, the Justice Department opened an investigation into Texas’ five juvenile facilities after advocates filed a complaint.

About 900 youth are detained in understaffed and outdated juvenile facilities across the state, Henneke said, adding that the problems they face in the lockups highlight structural challenges including a lack of resources at state and local levels.

She said judges and lawmakers should think creatively about other rehabilitation efforts because mistreatment at facilities only exacerbates trauma in young people.

Texas is not the only state facing federal investigations by the government, or lawsuits from former incarcerated children over harsh conditions in youth lockups. Clark announced in May a federal probe of conditions in Kentucky’s youth detention centers after a state report found problems with the use of force and isolation techniques. Lawsuits have been filed this year in Illinois, Pennsylvania, Maryland, and New Jersey alleging harsh treatment of incarcerated children.