Juvenile solitary: Close-up of legs and hands-in-lap of black person wearing over-sized navy pants sitting on edge of built-in cement bench with metal toilet in background.

Despite outcry over seclusion at juvenile detention centers, Tennessee lawmakers fail to pass oversight bill

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Children in Rutherford County,  have been arrested and jailed at rates unparalleled in the state. This story reports on an investigation of why that is happening — and other ways the justice system there singles out children.

A bill that would strengthen oversight of Tennessee’s juvenile detention centers has failed, despite a concerted push for reform after multiple county-run facilities were found to be locking children alone in cells.

The bill was introduced in the state legislature in January after a WPLN and ProPublica investigation last year reported that seclusion was used as punishment for minor rule infractions like laughing during meals or talking during class. One facility, the Richard L. Bean Juvenile Service Center in Knoxville, was particularly reliant on seclusion, in violation of state laws and standards that banned the practice as a form of discipline.

Usually in Tennessee, that would be a recipe for a bill to become a law. But the legislation was sent to what is called “summer study,” a maneuver that allows lawmakers to continue working on the legislation but is typically used to effectively kill a bill. Its sponsors and child welfare advocates are baffled as to why.

Real justice for juveniles requires that judges, lawyers and court employees be trained in youth development, cultural distinctions among youth and how trauma may drive how youth behave in court, according to several youth justice groups.

Opinion: Youth Justice Needs Specialized Training of Judges, Lawyers, Court Employees, and Courtroom Language that Doesn’t Demean

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“Move the bodies.” That’s what a defense lawyer recently overheard an employee in juvenile court say, as if the young people being brought into the courtroom for the next hearing were animals to be herded. The dehumanizing of young people involved in the criminal legal system is common, unfortunately. Those comments, and the attitudes underlying them, can have detrimental effects on youth who hear themselves spoken about with bias, disapproval and disrespect.