Memphis teen to be taken out of solitary
‘Safekeeper’ to be moved into juvenile detention
A Memphis teenager in solitary confinement at an adult prison will move to the Shelby County Juvenile Detention Center based on an order signed Wednesday by a local Criminal Court judge.
The transfer of Teriyona Winton, 16, comes after legislation signed by Gov. Bill Haslam on Monday regarding housing juveniles in adult facilities. Winton has spent months in an adult facility on a charge from last year in the shooting death of 17-year-old Deago Brown, when she was 15.
On Wednesday Criminal Court Judge W. Mark Ward signed an order removing Winton from an adult facility in Henning, transferring her to local juvenile detention.
“Today the county and her attorneys entered an order that will bring her back to an age-appropriate facility, where she should have been all the time,” said Josh Spickler, executive director of non-profit Just City Memphis.
The legislation signed by Haslam installs new regulations on the state’s socalled “safekeeping” law. The new law bans housing juvenile safekeepers in adult prisons and establishes new oversight to ensure adult safekeepers don’t languish in solitary confinement,.
Winton is still awaiting trial, but spent months in solitary confinement in
Nashville at a state prison for adult women. She was confined for 23 hours a day, showering three times a week while in shackles and receiving tutoring through a pipe flap in her prison door.
In April, she was moved to a wing of the prison in Henning that would otherwise house 128 inmates. She is the sole inmate.
Spickler believes Winton could return to Memphis by Thursday.
“It’s definitely a recognition that what we did was wrong. Unfortunately, it took the entire state legislature and the governor of this state to force Shelby County to do it,” Spickler said.
Shelby County is the only county in the state that does not house juveniles in juvenile facilities while awaiting trial in adult court, said Lisa Geis, director of the University of Memphis’ Children’s Defense Clinic.
“In every other county, kids, even post-conviction in adult courts, stay in a juvenile facility until they’re 18,” Geis said. “So even when found guilty in adult court, they will stay there until they’re 18.”
But sending juveniles to adult facilities is part of the culture in Shelby County, Spickler said.
It’s a culture of treating teens — particularly of color — like adults way too soon, he said.
State law allowed county prosecutors and jail officials to deem someone accused of a crime a “safekeeper” if those local officials determine the local jail is insufficient for housing the person.
In March, Senate Majority Leader Mark Norris, R-Collierville, proposed the first substantive change to safekeeping laws since 1858.
The change ends the practice of sending juveniles to state prisons while requiring local officials to review safekeeping orders every 30 days. Some safekeepers spend months in solitary confinement even after the reason they were forced into the program is resolved.
Earlier this year, a joint investigation by the Marshall Project and USA TODAY NETWORK - Tennessee found more than 320 people in Tennessee were declared safekeepers from January 2011 through 2017.
Even with this move, there could be long-term mental consequences for Winton, Geis said.
“The damage that has been done to her is probably undoable,” Geis said.
Studies from as far back as the 1800s document the damage of isolation, she said.
“We don’t know what it’s going to look like for Teriyona,” Geis said.