Heat returns to Juvenile Court: AC goes out again
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Air conditioning was out Tuesday at Shelby County Juvenile Court for the second time in less than two weeks, as temperatures outside reached the low 90s.
Affected locations included part of the juvenile detention area, as well as some courtrooms and offices.
“When you walk in that room, it’s like they turned an oven on,” said 39-year-old Antonio Washington outside Courtroom 4 alongside his 15-year-old son.
Fans were cooling the firstfloor hallway inside the courthouse at 616 Adams. A request for a Commercial Appeal reporter and photographer to visit the juvenile detention area was denied by the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, which runs the detention facility.
Staff was busy working to get the AC working and setting up a holding area, said sheriff’s spokesman Earle Farrell.
“The juveniles housed in this area are spending the day in other parts of the detention area, including Hope Academy, the Shelby County school that operates within Juvenile Court, which is not affected by the outage,” according to a statement from the court.
At the court building, 60-yearold Howard Williams said it was hot in a courtroom, but that the hallways were cool.
“The question is, what are you doing to get it fixed?” he said. “Sometimes it takes a minute to find out what the problem is. Even if you know what the problem is you sometimes have to order the parts. Sometimes you might have to replace the whole system.”
The problem is partially due to an old HVAC system that needs custom-made coils, according to the court, and the coils should be delivered and installed this week.
“Shelby County Support Services division and the county’s HVAC vendor have been working since early this morning to correct the problem,” the court said Tuesday.
“Meanwhile, fans and portable HVAC units continue to be set up in the affected areas until all airconditioning systems are working again. Bottled water also is being distributed to the affected courtrooms.”
There was also a problem with the air conditioning last month that affected seven courtrooms and some judicial offices, but support staff and the court’s HVAC vendor restored it.
In August 2012, the air conditioning went out inside the detention center. After temperatures climbed into the 80s at night, officials were forced to transport nearly 50 teens to nearby adult jail at the Criminal Justice Center at 201 Poplar. The youths were held in a separate area.
The Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County is under federal monitoring following an investigation by the Department of Justice. In a 2012 report, the DOJ found discrimination against African-American children, unsafe conditions of confinement and failures to provide due process to youth appearing for proceedings.
Earlier this year, David Roush, the consultant monitoring the detention facility, wrote a report that contained allegations of youths being disciplined in 23hour, locked-room confinement with handcuffing and shackling during the single out-of-room hour, which the detention chief, Kirk Fields, disputed.
Michael Leiber, who has examined racial disparities in the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County, wrote in a separate report in June that being black increases the chance of detention and decreases the chance of receiving a non-judicial outcome in comparison to similar whites.
Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael said in a July interview that the court has done a “tremendous” amount of work the last four years in diverting children from the system, including into community programs.
A community engagement meeting is planned from 6 to 7 p.m. Thursday at the Community Rooms at the Hickory Ridge Mall.