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The Tennessee Conservative [By Paula Gomes] –
In a recent report, two watchdog groups say that a Tennessee juvenile justice facility is being run like a “dangerous jail,” which violates state and federal laws.
Disability Rights Tennessee and the Youth Law Center say that monitoring of the Wilder Youth Development Center (WYDC) in Somerville since September 2020 has unearthed serious issues. The report flags unsanitary and unsafe conditions, a dire lack of rehabilitative and educational services, disproportionately high numbers of Black youth and young people with disabilities being confined at the facility and solitary confinement as a means of punishment.
The groups report that WYDC staff routinely abuse the youth in their care. Incidents include physical abuse, sexual abuse, and staff inciting the young people at WYDC to attack one another. One out of every four youth at the facility who spoke with Disability Rights Tennessee say they have either witnessed, been the victim of, or helped staff provide snacks and other incentives to residents for attacking other youth. Disability Rights Tennessee has filed more than ten child abuse reports during its monitoring period at WYDC.
Both groups believe many of the practices can be found in other facilities within Tennessee’s juvenile justice system and also that DCS is failing to meet their duty under state law to the youth in the system. Under Tennessee law (Tennessee Code Annotated (T.C.A.) § 37-5-102), DCS is required “to provide timely, appropriate and cost-effective services for children in state custody and at risk of entering state custody so that these children can reach their full potential as productive, competent and healthy adults.”
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According to the report, “DCS is wasting taxpayer money. By law, state funds are required to provide evidence-based services and, when possible, those services should be community-based. In its monitoring, DRT saw little evidence that the $407 per day per youth costs for Wilder were spent on appropriately delivered, evidence-based interventions or earlier, more cost efficient and effective community-based services.”
Seclusion practices implemented at WYDC also violate DCS’s own policies and further harm the young people placed in their care. The “Therapeutic Response Unit” is where youth are subjected to solitary confinement. One teen, highlighted in the report, was locked up in a room that smelled of urine for 23 hours a day.
Such practices have been recognized by the Tennessee State Legislature as being harmful to which end they passed a bill in 2021 prohibiting the seclusion of youth for “discipline, punishment, administrative convenience, retaliation, staffing shortages, or any reason other than a temporary response to behavior that threatens immediate harm to a youth or others.”
Even before this law was passed, seclusion was supposed to be highly regulated by DCS policy, and could only be used for disciplinary purposes after several hearings. Disciplinary confinement when given was only meant to last for a maximum of five days and then for only the most serious of offenses, such as arson.
This report is by no means the only example of misuse of taxpayer funds and abuse of children in the juvenile system. At the beginning of the year, a group of state lawmakers sought to remove Judge Donna Scott Davenport in Rutherford County who oversaw an illegal detention policy for at least 10 years.
In 2016, Judge Davenport charged 11 elementary school children with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another” for watching a scuffle between three other children. Such a crime does not exist in Tennessee law. A class-action lawsuit against the county ended in a combined payout of $397,500 to the children.
Juvenile Court Judge Sharon Guffee has arrested more youth in Williamson County than in any county in the state. At 11%, that’s almost twice as many as other Tennessee counties. Despite the national trend moving toward rehabilitating youth, Williamson County is building a bigger juvenile detention center because they are out of room. Guffee is being challenged by pro-family attorney Connie Reguli in the Republican Primary.
On her campaign website, Connie Reguli reports that child welfare federal funding has perverted justice for families. Federal Title IV-E of the Social Security Act gives money to states to pay for children in foster care, youth facilities or detention centers.
In a recent video, Reguli gives an overview of some of the people in Williamson County who receive taxpayer funds for their part in the juvenile justice system.
About the Author: Paula Gomes is a Tennessee resident and reporter for The Tennessee Conservative. You can reach Paula at paula@tennesseeconservativenews.com.
