“Kids of Rutherford County”, a podcast which details the struggles of two attorneys fighting against the system of juvenile justice in Rutherford County under Judge Donna Scott Davenport, has placed Tennessee directly into national news. The report by WPLN and ProPublica, which inspired the podcast, details the illegal jailing of kids by the juvenile court of Rutherford County for crimes which do not reach the statutory requirements for detention. In light of both this report and podcast, what is the state of Juvenile Justice in the rest of the state of Tennessee, and what is being proposed to help children in the system?
Human Rights For Kids, a non-profit dedicated to the promotion and protection of human rights for children, issued a report on juvenile justice in the U.S. in 2020.
Here, the report lists Tennessee as one of the worst offenders, ranking two out of ten on the scale of human rights protections for children. The report states that Tennessee has made little to no effort to protect the human rights of children in the justice system and is likely in violation of international human rights standards.
Disability Rights Tennessee (“DRT”), a nonprofit legal services organization, issued a report on February 15, 2024, detailing the costs of the juvenile justice system in Tennessee. The report states that to house a juvenile in Wilder Youth Development Center, a juvenile justice center about 35 miles from Memphis, TN, costs $1,632.24 per day with a total cost of more than $600,000 per year per child. Additionally, the Department of Children’s Services is planning to build another facility in the Nashville area that will cost $400 million and house 72 juvenile offenders. In total, Tennessee currently has about 625 children in the juvenile justice system, but only a small number are in secure facilities like Wilder Youth
Development Center.
Children inside of the juvenile justice system face many challenges. Children in detention centers can waive their constitutional rights without parental consent, which can be then used against them in court to deprive them of certain liberties. In addition, some offenders are only given five minutes per week to speak with their families.
DRT has filed a federal lawsuit alleging that three juvenile justice centers in the state have been abusing children under their care. Specifically, the complaint alleges that these three centers have been using pepper spray against children who have physical and mental disabilities and refusing to give them their required medication.
With these abuses lurking in the background, the Tennessee legislature is expected to attempt to pass a bill in 2024 that aims to toughen the juvenile justice sentencing requirements in the state. The bill was initially introduced in the special session on school safety after the Covenant school shooting that took the lives of six people last March. The bill would allow courts to classify children as young as 14 as Serious Youthful Offenders and sentence them to adult detention through the age of 24 if they have been convicted of a class A or B felony while using a deadly weapon. The law does not require a hearing for those teenage offenders who are about to age out of the juvenile justice system. Rather, teenage offenders are only granted a hearing if the court previously said they would not be transferred to adult.
There have been many ideas for reform in our juvenile justice system. For example, Tennessee passed legislation in 2023 that would: authorize law enforcement to issue citations instead of arrest, reduce the arrest eligibility, and require school personnel to engage family in resolving a child’s behavior before seeking court intervention. Additionally, DRT has proposed three areas of improvement: support and strengthen families, thus eliminating barriers to parenting; connect youth to community-based networks of support that can keep them on the right path, rather than cutting them off from resources; and increase transparency, oversight, and accountability, ensuring that the state keeps its youth in the juvenile justice system safe.
There must be more action on the part of the state legislature and the courts to ensure that children in our state are being treated with dignity and that their constitutional rights are being upheld in the juvenile justice system. While some work has been done by the State, there is much left to accomplish and many obstacles to overcome. Whatever is ultimately done, Tennessee must do whatever it can to ensure that the most vulnerable of its citizens, its children, are protected while inside the juvenile justice system.
CITATIONS
• Hassan, Adeel, and Emily Cochrane. What We Know about the Nashville School Shooting, The New York Times, 29 Mar. 2023.
• Human Rights for Kids, 2020, 2020 State Ratings Report: Human Rights Protections for Children in the U.S. Justice System.
• Knight, Meribah. The Kids of Rutherford County: A Reporter’s Essay, ProPublica, 26 Oct. 2023.
• Masters, Hamilton Matthew. “Lawsuit Alleges Youth Detention Centers Repeatedly Pepper-Sprayed Children.” Nashville Scene, 28 Dec. 2023.
• Podcast: The Kids of Rutherford County, ProPublica, 22 Nov. 2023.
• Smith, Cameron. Tennessee Must Stop Allowing Children to Waive Their Rights without Parental Consent, The Tennessean, 12 Jan. 2024.
• States Commit to Comprehensive Juvenile Legal System Reforms, The Pew Charitable Trusts, 15 Dec. 2023.
• Stockard, Sam. Department of Children’s Services Spending $400m on Intake, Juvenile Detention Projects • Tennessee Lookout, Tennessee Lookout, 15 Sept. 2023.
• Stockard, Sam. Special Session Bills Expected to Revive in 2024 • Tennessee Lookout,
Tennessee Lookout, 13 Sept. 2023.
• What Is the State of Tennessee’s Juvenile Justice System?, News Channel 5 Nashville (WTVF), 29 Feb. 2024.
• Wilder Youth Development Center, Tennessee Department of Children’s Services,
Accessed 5 Apr. 2024.
Recent Comments