$54M juvenile facility is eyed
Combined assessment, detention site on table
The Shelby County Commission will revisit the idea of building a $54 million combined juvenile detention and assessment center after balking at a 10-year lease Wednesday.
The question of how to house juveniles in the county came to a head during a committee discussion, exacerbated by the Juvenile Court’s renewed petition for the Department of Justice to end its oversight of the court. The current facilities for pre-adjudicated juveniles are “abysmal,” said Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael.
The county was looking to lease and renovate the Shelby Training Center at 3420 Old Getwell from private prison manager CoreCivic for 10 years at a cost of $2.1 million a year — or a total cost of about $30 million, including the renovations. After 10 years, the county could extend the lease another two years or buy the facility, Needham said.
However, commissioners panned the idea of a lease, especially at that facility, which they described as termite-ridden and not “up to par” for the county’s juveniles. Former Memphis mayor Willie Herenton, who is hoping the commission instead supports his plan to build a “holistic” detention campus with rehabilitation services, said he agreed.
“I looked at that facility, and let me say to you: it’s inhuman,” Herenton said.
Instead, commission chairwoman Heidi Shafer plans to lead a task force of stakeholders in reviewing the county’s options and recommending a long-term solution. One solution, which seemed to have the support of county Public Works Director Tom Needham and several commissioners, was to spend $54 million building a combined detention and assessment center over the next six years.
“In the farming community, you buy — you don’t rent,” she said, adding that she was a “farm girl.”
Detaining post-adjudicated juveniles is the state’s responsibility while holding pre-adjudicated juveniles is the county’s.
Currently, juveniles from Shelby County are shipped outside of the county, making up half of all juveniles in the state’s system, Michael said. Detaining locally, as proposed by Herenton and others, would create jobs and bring in $18 million a year in state funds.
However, Michael said he had supported the lease because the county needed more beds for juvenile detainees immediately. He said the state is also cracking down on the incarceration of some juveniles in facilities meant for adults, which could strain local capacity for juveniles.
“We need help, and we need help now,” Michael said.
Also, Michael said he opposed “co-location” of the detention and assessment centers, even with separate entrances, because the first was basically a prison. Between those two concerns, Michael said he had asked for the county to pursue the lease.
Josh Spickler, executive director of Memphis-based Just City, a nonprofit that advocates for criminal justice reforms, said he doesn’t think safekeeping policy changes on the state level will lead to a shortage of beds locally.
And while he supports building a new facility, Spickler said he wouldn’t want to expand the capacity for holding juveniles because judges are “addicted to incarceration.”
“If they build a bigger facility, they will fill the bigger facility,” he said.
The county could possibly sign a short-term lease while the county builds the detention and assessment center, commissioners replied.
Commissioner Steve Basar proposed adding the question to the commission’s agenda Monday, but his motion died for lack of a second. If the commission had added the item and it had failed, the commission couldn’t raise the issue again for 90 days.
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