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.

Juvenile detention populations low: Young black teen lies on bed with legs propped up on wall on cot in empty room with grey cement floor and white walls

Tennessee lawmakers want more oversight of juvenile detention. The Department of Children’s Services is pushing back.

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The commissioner of the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services publicly said this month that the agency was working with lawmakers to address oversight gaps at juvenile detention facilities across the state. But behind the scenes, the department is working to water down a bill that would do just that, according to one of the bill’s sponsors and others working on the legislation.

juvenile justice staff: a young woman in a prison cell

Staff, Youth at Enormous Risk of COVID-19 in Correctional Facilities

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(This column is dedicated to the memory of Paul DeMuro, who passed earlier this week from a non-COVID-19 related illness. Paul was a longtime leader and mentor to so many in the work to reduce incarceration and improve the lives of young people and families in the justice system.)

On April 1, Kenneth Moore, a youth development representative at Washington, D.C.’s juvenile justice agency died of COVID-19. Kenneth was the first correctional officer in the nation to succumb to the virus. Today, many more staff and youth inside correctional facilities are sick and dying. I had the privilege of helping lead the District’s juvenile justice agency, the Department of Youth Rehabilitation Services (DYRS), between 2005 and 2010.