Tennessee Kids Locked in Solitary Confinement Despite New Laws
A media investigation last year exposed a loophole that allowed juvenile detention facilities in Tennessee to keep kids locked in their cells for 23 hours a day or more. Even after a law was passed to change this, a watchdog group says nothing has changed.
Landwebs
After a media investigation last year exposed the fact that juvenile detention facilities in Tennessee were locking children in their cells for more than 23 hours a day, state lawmakers approved laws to ban the practice. But a watchdog group claims that nothing has changed, NewsChannel 5 reports. The watchdog, taxpayer-funded Disability Rights Tennessee, said the Department of Children’s Services (DCS) is deliberately ignoring the laws prohibiting this treatment.
NewsChannel 5 interviewed one mom who said her son was in his cell 23 hours a day at the DCS-run Wilder Youth Development Center because the facility did not have enough staff. “He experienced being locked down 23 hours, sometimes 24 hours, because if there wasn’t enough staffing, he wasn’t coming out,” the mom said. “There’s a great deal of frustration that it’s continuing,” Lt. Governor McNally told NewsChannel 5. “We thought we had taken care of the problem, and it’s surprising that it’s not.”
