Tennessee County Reportedly Illegally Jailed Hundreds Of Children, Charging Some With Crimes That Don’t Exist

For years, a suburban county near Nashville, Tennessee, illegally locked up children and in at least one instance used bogus charges to justify it, according to a bombshell ProPublica investigation published Friday, as part of a system that sent kids as young as seven to jail.

In Rutherford County, Tennessee, 48% of children whose cases were referred to juvenile court ended up jailed in 2014—a rate nearly 10 times higher than the state average. GETTY

KEY FACTS

According to ProPublica, Rutherford County, Tennessee, used what county officials called a "filter system" starting in 2008, which left it up to the discretion of jailers to decide whether a child arrested and taken to the juvenile detention center should be released, though Tennessee law only allows for children to be held under specific circumstances.
Under the direction of Judge Donna Scott Davenport—the county's sole juvenile court judge—the county's policy is for all children charged with crimes to be processed at the detention center, either through being arrested or dropped off by their parents.
In a 2016 incident that sparked outrage, the policies were used to arrest 11 elementary school children—all Black—with six being handcuffed and four being locked up in jail after processing.
For allegedly watching a scuffle involving a five-year-old, a six-year-old and one older boy, the children were charged with “criminal responsibility for conduct of another”—a crime that does not exist in Tennessee law.
The result was a class-action lawsuit against Rutherford County, which was settled in 2017 when the county agreed to pay out a combined $397,500 to the 11 children, while a separate class-action lawsuit ended the county's "filter system."
The officer who signed off on the “criminal responsibility for conduct of another” charges was suspended for three days, according to ProPublica, while the head of the juvenile detention facility and Davenport remain in their jobs, reportedly to glowing reviews from other local officials.

BIG NUMBER
48%. That's the percentage of children who were jailed in the county after cases were referred to juvenile court in 2014—the most recent year data is available. That number was by far the most of any county in Tennessee and was a rate nearly 10 times above the state average of 5%.

KEY BACKGROUND
Davenport has taken a harsh line with juveniles in her tenure as the elected juvenile court judge, according to ProPublica, a position she has held since 2000. The judge holds immense power over the local juvenile justice system, appointing all magistrates and approving policies for the detention center.

Davenport also appears on a monthly segment on a local radio station, in which she has claimed children are behaving far worse now than they have in the past. Davenport says she believes she's on "God's mission" to discipline children in the community, sometimes referring to herself as the "mother of the county," according to ProPublica. Through a combination of her "process" requiring all children who are charged with a crime be sent to the detention center and the facility's "filter system" letting jailers decide who gets to be released, it's estimated some 1,500 children have been illegally jailed in Rutherford County during her time as judge.

County officials have also said at meetings they view the 64-bed detention facility as a profit center, since it has contracts with 39 other counties and the U.S. Marshals Service to hold child detainees, reportedly at a cost of $175 per person per day. Davenport did not respond to requests for comment from either ProPublica or Forbes.

CRUCIAL QUOTE
"Being detained in our facilities is not a picnic at all. It's not supposed to be. It's a consequence for an action," Davenport said during one of her radio segments.

CHIEF CRITIC
The ProPublica piece sparked widespread condemnation of the juvenile justice system in Rutherford County, Tennessee, on Friday. "This is so wrong on so many levels," Tennessee Senate Minority Leader Jeff Yarbro (D) said on Twitter, adding the "story about this nightmare is worth your time and attention today."

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