MEMPHIS, Tenn. — Shelby County will open a new Youth Justice and Education Center in late July or August that will give detained children a more modern facility with access to more programs.
The facility has 9 classrooms and has outdoor and indoor recreational areas including a gym, baseball field and a new juvenile courtroom. This facility, unlike the old one, has a new dental office. It also has a dedicated area for mental and physical screenings—available for 24-hour care.
The current juvenile detention facility, on the second floor of the juvenile courthouse on Adams Ave. in the downtown area, has 114 beds, no windows, and only two classrooms.
According to the Memphis Crime Commission, rehabilitation is top of mind. So far this year there have been nearly 186 juveniles charged with serious crimes compared to 203 in all of 2022, with the rate of juvenile repeat offenders being about the same as last year.
Cardell Orrin with the Shelby County Juvenile Task Force said there needs to be a better balance between rehabilitating and punishing young people.
“From the beginning, there’s been a concern about the increase in the number of beds in the facility," Orrin said. “We want to ensure that we are not detailing more and more of our young people. We can’t just lock our way up out of getting to safety. We can’t over-police our way to getting to safety.”
Assistant chief jailer Takietha Tuggle said the goal in this new facility is not to punish youth, but to give them every tool and resource available to become and do better.
“We can’t save everybody, but the ones we can impact, that’s good for me," assistant chief jailer Takietha Tuggle said.
Delvin Lane, executive director of youth intervention group 901 Bloc Squad, supports the new facility, stating that the children have seen so much crime, violence and murder that they have to "recondition back to kids."
“Don’t label the sight, don’t label what we do; get to know what we do,” Tuggle said.
Shelby County purchased this property for $3.4 million from CoreCivic in 2020, a Maryland-based company that owns detention facilities throughout the country.
“We know the crimes with the youth is high," Tuggle said. "That’s true, we understand. But when they come in, we see a different side of those kids. We don’t see that they are allegedly accused of the crime they have done. We see the vulnerable side of the kids; we see the talented side of the kids.”