Advocacy & Impact
In partnership with Disability Rights Tennessee, we have spent the last three years focused on advocacy to transform Tennessee’s broken juvenile justice system – addressing, for example, rampant neglect and physical, mental, and sexual abuse in custodial settings, delays in accessing medical treatment; and violations of federal disability laws inflicted disproportionately on Black children with disabilities in lock-down facilities; aiming to end youth transfers to adult court and adult jail and the dangerous use of solitary confinement for youth; and addressing a failure of state and local agencies to invest in the supports and services children need to become healthy and productive adults.
Class Action Lawsuit Against the State of Tennessee
On June 26, 2024, attorneys from Disability Rights Tennessee, Sanford Heisler Sharp, and the Youth Law Center filed a class action complaint challenging illegal and unconstitutional conditions in Tennessee’s juvenile justice facilities. The complaint alleges that the State of Tennessee, among other Defendants, warehouses children with disabilities in prison-like facilities and subjects them to violence and abuse. The complaint details routine use of solitary confinement, pepper spray, and physical assaults on youth with disabilities. The complaint also accuses staff members of beating children and bribing youth to attack one another. According to the complaint, the Defendants resort to such abuses instead of providing evidenced-based assessment, education, healthcare, and other rehabilitative services.
Advocacy in Action
2023: Youth Law Center and Partner Organizations in Tennessee Achieve Legislative Victories for Juvenile Justice Against All Odds
Youth Law Center led a Herculean effort to stop legislators from ramming through harmful youth justice bills during a special legislative session in Tennessee. The purpose of the special legislative session was originally announced as a response to the tragic deaths of children, teachers, and staff in a mass shooting at the Covenant School in Nashville, and advocates were surprised to see bills rewriting the state’s juvenile justice system on the table, while common sense gun safety reforms were not.
2023: Youth Law Center Stands Against Harmful Efforts to Incarcerate Youth in Adult Facilities
Youth Law Center staff have continued to work on the ground in Tennessee to ensure that youth in the juvenile justice system are not casualties in the struggle for greater government accountability and transparency.
Special Reports
2024: A Call to Action: Advancing Tennessee’s Juvenile Justice System to Strengthen Families, Communities, and Oversight
What would it look like if Tennessee’s juvenile justice system prioritized strengthening families, connecting youth to their home communities, and creating safe environments that promote healing, growth, and being held accountable for one’s actions?