Tag: Shelby County Juvenile Court

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Juvenile Judge Declares “Mission Accomplished”

CREDIT: Toby Sells

Toby Sells

Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael declared “mission accomplished” during his annual state of the court address Friday.

Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael declared “mission accomplished” during his annual state of the court address Friday, touting last year’s ending of federal oversight.

The U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) ended its six-year review of the court in October. The oversight began in 2012, after an investigation found that the court discriminated against African-American children, violated due process laws, and that the detention center was dangerous.

”I thank you, personally, for your all of your outstanding efforts over the past year, and declare mission accomplished,” Michael said at the Shelby County Crime Commission office Friday. “The Department of Justice has placed us in compliance with the memorandum of agreement to the point of its completion and ended federal monitoring of the juvenile court of Memphis and Shelby County.”
[pullquote-2] The move to end that oversight outraged some in Shelby County government. During a press conference in October, Shelby County Commissioner Van Turner said that while the oversight was over, “there were items that remained to be addressed.”

“So, this whole notion that it was a successful closure, I think is somewhat fabricated,” Turner said.
[pullquote-1] Michael said the court is recognized nationally as a model court by the National Council of of Juvenile and Family Court Judges, of which Michael is a board member.

”We’ve earned this not only by exhibiting care and compassion on a daily basis, but we also strive to become better by taking risks,” Michael said. “A model court doesn’t mean we’re a stand-out. It means that we experiment. If something doesn’t work, we move on and find something that does work. That’s what makes us a model court.”

Michael outlined five key components — made in collaboration with DOJ officials — that will carry the court forward.

Two of these were groups that will meet continually to improve the court. The strategic planning committee and the county-wide Juvenile Justice Consortium will have “access to the courthouse and the families we serve,” Michael said. The group will be able to “see our successes and aid us in shaping any shortfalls we may encounter.”

A community outreach program “will allow every citizens to get the answers to their questions about what we do and how we do it.” For this, the court will hold public meetings throughout the county.

Michael said the court will also continue to work with two consultants hired by Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner and Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris to help the court ”maintain best practices” and to “reduce (disproportionate minority contact.”

Michael said he fully supports Mayor Harris’ and the county commission’s project to build a new juvenile court facility.

In a line that seemed to be aimed at court employees, Michael said, “let’s use criticism and unfair judgments about us as step-in stones that ahead of this court.”

Michael ended his address with a quote from industrialist Henry Ford:

“Coming together is a beginning,” Michael said. “Keeping together is progress. Working together is success.”

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Politics Politics Feature

Echoes of Discord

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

As partisan disagreements on pending legislative measures continued to dominate the Washington political scene, there were distinct local echoes.

Even as Democrats in Congress were trying to force open discussion of the Senate’s pending version of an Obamacare repeal-and-replace bill, now being prepared in private by an ad hoc group of Republican Senators, the party faithful across the state held press conferences last Friday protesting the GOP’s close-to-the-vest strategy.

In Memphis, the protest, led by London Lamar, president of the Tennessee Young Democrats and including state Representative Antonio Parkinson, was held in front of the Cliff Davis Federal Building downtown. The group’s call for open discussion of health-care legislation was directed not only at congressional Republicans but at Tennessee Senators Bob Corker and Lamar Alexander and U.S. Rep. David Kustoff specifically.

Though the matter of the federal government’s current direct oversight of mandated improvements in the procedures of Shelby County’s Juvenile Court was not, per se, a partisan issue, local attitudes toward it have tended to cleave along party lines.

Such, at least, was the appearance of things after news accounts surfaced over the weekend detailing recent efforts by three county officials seeking an end to federal oversight of Shelby County Juvenile Court, the result of a 2012 Memorandum of Understanding between the county and the Department of Justice.

The officials — county Mayor Mark Luttrell, Sheriff Bill Oldham, and Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael — were all elected under the Republican electoral banner. 

The three officials discussed the matter of ending the federal oversight with Attorney General Jeff Sessions during his recent visit to Memphis. As attorney general, Sessions has taken a hard-line approach to law enforcement, focusing on what he sees as a need for more stringent enforcement and stricter penalties.

Luttrell, Oldham, and Michael subsequently elaborated on their request in a formal letter to the DOJ, which maintained that the court’s shortcomings — pinpointed in the DOJ investigation and subsequent MOU — have been rectified.

That claim drew negative reaction, much of it from local Democrats. One critic was state Representative Larry Miller, speaking as a panelist Monday morning at the National Civil Rights Museum.

Answering a question from the audience about legislative action on juvenile justice, Miller noted the county officials’ letter to the DOJ and took issue with it: “They’re saying, ‘We’ve done it. … We no longer need oversight.'” Disagreeing, Miller said, “We’re not there yet. The system is based on incarceration of young black men.”

A more reserved response came from former county Commissioner Sidney Chism, now an employee of the Sheriff’s Department and a declared candidate in next year’s race for county mayor. Said Chism, evidently speaking on behalf of Sheriff Oldham: “He has taken the goals seriously and has worked hard to achieve them, and I think he believes they have been achieved.”

Two legislators who were on Monday’s panel at the NCRM — state representatives Joe Towns and John DeBerry — commented afterward that the MOU should remain in effect but acknowledged, like Chism, that Luttrell, Michael, and Oldham seemed to have made good-faith efforts to raise the standards in effect at Juvenile Court.

But another nay vote came from 9th District Congressman Steve Cohen, who noted in a prepared statement that he had supported the original intervention by the Justice Department and said, “While progress has been made since 2012, there are still reports of race playing a factor in court hearings and reports of the juvenile detention facilities becoming more dangerous.” 

As of Tuesday, Sessions had not formally responded to the officials’ request.

Categories
News The Fly-By

Juvenile Detention Rates Decrease Thanks To New Approach

Admissions to the Memphis
and Shelby County Juvenile Court’s detention center have decreased more than 65 percent since 2012. This is solely attributed to the area’s implementation of the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative (JDAI).

In January 2012, the Annie E. Casey Foundation officially designated Memphis and Shelby County as a JDAI Site. To date, it’s the only area in the state that holds this designation.

The goal of the program is to reduce the number of juveniles detained for misdemeanor offenses, like domestic assaults, and place emphasis on felonies.

“What we try to do is not detain those juveniles unless there’s some other related charge,” said Chief Administrative Officer of Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court Larry Scroggs, regarding domestic assaults.

Domestic assault is one of the leading offenses juveniles are charged with locally. It accounted for 26 percent of offenses committed by juveniles in 2014.

“Usually, it just takes a cooling off period, trying to get everybody calmed down,” Scroggs said. “For those cases, it’s appropriate that we are able to house them over night until things are pretty much under control.”

To determine whether or not a teen should be detained or be released to community supervision or their parent(s), JDAI personnel uses a detention-assessment tool strategy.

The strategy examines a juvenile’s current offense(s), prior offense history, and prior failures to appear before court. Each factor is assigned a point value that determines an overall score. If the score is lower than 10, a juvenile can be released. If it’s between 10 and 18, they’re eligible for detainment. If the score is 19 or above, they’re automatically detained.

In 2011, prior to JDAI’s implementation, there were 5,249 admissions to juvenile detention. The following year, there were 3,949.

The number of admissions dropped in 2013 to 1,504. And in 2014, there were only 1,304 juveniles detained.

In addition to reducing unnecessary detainment, JDAI also seeks to reduce racial and ethnic disparities affecting African Americans in the juvenile justice system.

In 2012, results of a three-year investigation into Shelby County Juvenile Court were provided in a report by the Department of Justice. The report revealed that African-American defendants were reportedly detained more often and sentenced more harshly than their white peers.

Since then, the juvenile court has provided equal-protection monitor’s reports to display the reform they’ve implemented regarding the disproportionate referrals of blacks (about 90 percent) to juvenile custody, juvenile court, or adult criminal court.

“The overall numbers are coming down, and there is a value in that,” Scroggs said. “As the overall numbers come down, the number of African-American juveniles is also declining. Last year, there were 77 juveniles transferred to the adult system. I think all but two of those were African American. But the preceding year, there were 90. The year before that there were 130.”

Looking forward, JDAI representatives hope to continue to lower admissions to the juvenile detention center and eliminate crime with efforts like evening reporting centers.

The centers, already in operation at other JDAI sites across the country, would serve as an alternative to juvenile detention. The program primarily targets at-risk youth who have violated probation or have been apprehended on a warrant.

After school, those juveniles would be bussed to the centers, where they would be provided dinner, recreational activities, and homework assistance. They also would receive transportion home in the evening.

“[By doing] that during the period of time when children are the most active and out in the community, you have a handle on those children, especially if they’re on probation,” said Kimbrell Owens, JDAI site coordinator. “It’s meant to give them a different avenue.”