Last Chance in Texas: The Redemption of Criminal Youth

John Hubner is the author of Last Chance in Texas. He is a journalist and investigative reporter who has written three other books: Monkey on a Stick (1988), coauthored with Lindsay Gruson; Bottom Feeders (1993); and Somebody Else’s Children (1996), coauthored with Jill Wolfson. While doing research for Last Chance in Texas, Hubner spent nine months as an observer behind a one-way mirror so he could watch the group sessions. He also combed through case files and interviewed the administrators and therapists at the Giddings State School.

As the father of two children, Hubner was deeply affected by the students’ stories: “I’d come back after hearing a life story or a crime story and go inside and sometimes, I’d start to cry. I wasn’t crying for myself; I was crying for these kids and their victims and for the pain we inflict on one another” (248).

Hubner expresses the hope that other juvenile detention facilities across the country will adopt the COG program, noting, “I believe that if the thousands and thousands of Ronnies and Elenas now doing dead time in prison had a chance to go through a Capital Offenders program, we could turn cell blocks into ghost towns” (248).