State already caught up in lawsuit over treatment of youth offenders.
Image: A replacement for the John S. Wilder Youth Development Center in West Tennessee is slated to be built. Image Credit: Google Earth
By Sam Stockard [The Tennessee Lookout -CC BY-NC-ND 4.0] –
Tennessee is planning to build a juvenile detainment facility for pre-adjudication in West Tennessee even as it spends hundreds of millions reconstructing two facilities, all while the state is mired in a lawsuit alleging mistreatment of youth offenders.
Republican Sen. Ed Jackson of Jackson said Tuesday he supports construction of a detention center on a Madison County site being purchased next to Jackson’s criminal justice center where minors would be held until their cases go through juvenile courts across the western part of the state. The facility could cost $45 million to $55 million, but some local governments are willing to chip in, according to Jackson.
Lawmakers passed legislation this year requiring a study of the state’s juvenile detention and treatment facilities to determine whether another center is merited. The report by the Tennessee Advisory Commission on Intergovernmental Relations is expected to be finished in January 2026 to present to the legislature. But, the preliminary results appear to be clear.
“I think they found out, not just yes, but heck yes, there’s definitely a need for this in rural West Tennessee,” Jackson said.
Outside of Memphis, only 10 beds are available in rural West Tennessee for minors awaiting adjudication for serious crimes, eight in Madison County and two in Dyer County, the senator said.
Jackson described a situation in which Tipton County law enforcement had to hold a teenager charged with a gun-related crime in a local motel, with deputies monitoring him around the clock until his court date, because the sheriff’s office didn’t want to send him to a Memphis facility.
“Every sheriff and pretty much every juvenile judge in West Tennessee is saying we’ve got to have a place,” Jackson said.
Youthful offenders can’t be housed within hearing or eyesight of adult offenders in county jails or prisons.
State Rep. Gloria Johnson said Tuesday the state’s emphasis on toughening laws locking up minors is misplaced. Instead, Tennessee should be taking steps such as raising the minimum wage to keep teens from committing crimes, concentrating on mental health treatment and rehabilitating those who get into trouble, she said.
“I think the Tennessee Legislature is creating criminals instead of preventing them, and they just want to mass-house them. They are throwing our kids away instead of doing what’s right for them,” said Johnson, a Knoxville Democrat.
Rebuilding youth detention
The State Building Commission’s executive subcommittee this week authorized the use of a construction manager/general contractor for designing and setting a guaranteed price to build new Woodland Hills and John S. Wilder youth detention centers in Nashville and Fayette County. The projects are budgeted at a total of $333.3 million.
Those projects are moving ahead even as the state is caught in a lawsuit filed by Disability Rights Tennessee against the state, the Department of Children’s Services and the commissioners of DCS and the Department of Education in June 2024, alleging they are illegally and unconstitutionally warehousing kids with disabilities in prison-like facilities. A separate lawsuit filed in November 2023 targets Wilder detention center over the treatment of two youths who were allegedly injured in assaults by inmates and staff.
About 600 to 650 youth are in DCS juvenile justice custody at any one time, 1,200-1,400 annually, and an estimated 65% to 85% live with a disability, based on national data, according to Disability Rights Tennessee.
Tennessee doesn’t operate any juvenile facilities considered to be locked down, instead contracting with three Tennessee private entities for “hardware secure” facilities and another from Texas, totaling 159 beds for youths who commit serious offenses.
Thirty other facilities run by private entities provide lower level security, or secured only by personnel, similar to that at Wilder Development Center.
The year-old lawsuit details cases in which youth offenders were held in solitary confinement for months, causing them to become suicidal. It also cites the Richard L. Bean Center in Knoxville as using solitary confinement to punish youths.
The lawsuit describes a 17-year-old boy beaten more than 31 times, a 15-year-old girl shackled and dragged across a floor to solitary confinement, multiple cases of pepper-spraying and situations in which “bounties” were placed on kids to induce attacks after they filed grievances against staff or complained about conditions. The filing also says packaged noodles were used to reward those who beat up other youths.
The State Building Commission’s Executive Subcommittee approved the state’s construction plan without discussion this week for Woodland Hills and Wilder facilities.
Asked if he’s concerned about the lawsuit’s allegations as the state spends heavily on new facilities, Comptroller Jason Mumpower said, “We want things to be right, both for the public and for the people who are housed there.”
Republican Rep. Jay Reedy of Erin sponsored the bill ordering a study of the state’s juvenile facilities after receiving a letter from the city of Germantown requesting more space for juvenile offenders in their region. City officials described problems with “overwhelming capacity issues” at West Tennessee detention centers and raised concerns about juvenile offenders returning to “community environments” without receiving the rehabilitation or treatment they needed.
Reedy’s bill, which was sponsored in the Senate by Republican Sen. Brent Taylor of Shelby County, directs the commission to study facilities that house juvenile offenders found to be delinquent and placed in the custody of the Department of Children’s Services or who are detained by juvenile courts while waiting for hearings.
