Tag: Sheriff Floyd Bonner

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Groups Advocate for Big Changes in Youth Justice System

Photo by engin akyurt on Unsplash

A consortium of organizations want systemic changes in the youth justice system and have formally requested a meeting with Shelby County Sheriff Floyd Bonner to address them.

The Black Clergy Collaborative of Memphis (BCCM) announced on Wednesday that they, along with nine other organizations, delivered to Bonner seeking his help to develop a new plan to address issues they see in the system. The consortium includes Stand for Children – Tennessee, Gifts of Life Ministries, Whole Child Strategies, Just City, Shelby Countywide Juvenile Justice Consortium, The Equity Alliance, Memphis for All, Memphis Interfaith Coalition for Action and Hope (MICAH), and Youth Justice Action Council (YJAC).

The biggest concern for the group is that the Shelby County Youth Justice and Education Center has not allowed in-person visitation for several years. they also said youth are not receiving an education that parallels mainstream public school; they are not allowed time outdoors; and research and advocacy organizations are not allowed time with detained youth.

The groups say the youth justice system should “balance accountability with rehabilitation,” and that those who are detained should “ receive appropriate care, education, and support during their involvement with the legal process.”

The wellbeing of detained youth is dependent on community collaboration, they said, and they are “eager” to develop a plan focused on “youth adolescent development and their strengths.”That plan should include data, research, and evidence-based practices, they said, something missing now.

“Unfortunately, some organizations gathering data and performing research have been denied access to youth in detention who have lived experiences that can inform the plan that will help youth avoid interaction with the justice system and prevent them from returning if they have already been involved,” the groups said.

A report from the Disability Rights TN and Youth Law Center says “logistical and cost barriers” often stop families from visiting their children while they’re detained. The advocacy consortium listed a variety of other reasons like transportation burdens and phone restrictions that also have proved to be hurdles to visitation.

“Parents literally cannot parent their children, not because they don’t want to, but because the juvenile justice system erects barriers that make it virtually impossible to do so,” the report said.

The report from the law center also says detained youth “ are not receiving an education that parallels mainstream public schools and holds them to the same academic standards.”

“Receiving appropriate education ensures that youth eligible to return to school after release will be prepared to succeed in mainstream public schools and will not be further marginalized,” the groups said. “Youth who do not return to public education should have the tools to pursue a productive life after detention. “

The organizations requested that Bonner respond with his availability by this week. It was unclear if the meeting has been scheduled.

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Politics Politics Feature

An Uneven Week for Sheriff Bonner

Sheriff Floyd Bonner (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Sheriff Floyd Bonner had ample reason to feel satisfied last week. Previously he had been informed that the Republicans would not include his office in their 2022 primary elections. And on Wednesday of last week, he was treated as something of a conquering hero by a large crowd of rank-and-file Democrats and candidates for other offices at a party forum.

Indeed, Bonner spoke early, as a de facto head of the party ticket, at the forum, which was sponsored at the Great Hall of Germantown by District 4 (Germantown, Cordova) of the Shelby County Democratic Party. And he was well applauded.

Yet all is not sunny weather for the sheriff. He is currently vexed by the matter of the county jail, as he made plain in his remarks at the forum. In effect, Bonner made a somewhat desperate-sounding plea, asking that those present help him in rounding up candidates to work at the jail, promising a $5,000 bonus for anyone applying and accepted, to go with a salary in the $40,000 range.

“And they can be 18 years old,” he said.

The sheriff did not mention another fact about the jail — that he has been the subject of a suit filed by the ACLU on behalf of the inmate population, which, according to the suit, is seriously underserved in the matter of protection from the ravages of Covid-19. Bonner is also bound by a consent decree to remedy the matter, overseen by federal Judge Sheryl Lipman, who finds both staff and inmates, a small minority of whom are vaccinated, to be in “deep peril.” (Three deputy jailers have died from Covid, and numerous inmates have become seriously ill.) Lipman has issued a follow-up order denying a motion by the sheriff to suspend the decree.

Supporters of the ACLU action succeeded in getting a resolution critical of the sheriff’s inaction on the agenda of the SCDP’s executive committee Thursday night, but it was rejected 21 to 3, with members of the majority proclaiming a reluctance to impose judgment on the sheriff’s prerogatives. And clearly the realpolitik of 2020 electoral politics played a role in the outcome.

The court order remains, however, as does the resolve of local activists demanding compliance.

As this week began, Sheriff Bonner, who won all the votes last week, lost one. The first reading of a resolution to raise his annual pay from $164,765 to $199,500 failed in the Shelby County Commission by a vote of two ayes, two noes, and seven abstentions. The magic number would have been nine, a two-thirds majority.

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Politics Politics Feature

GOP Won’t Oppose Democrat Bonner for Sheriff

Bonner with predecessor (and endorser) Bill Oldham in 2018 (Photo: Jackson Baker)

Sheriff Floyd Bonner was the top vote-getter of all Shelby County candidates in 2018, the year he was elected to his first term. Running as a Democrat, he handily defeated Republican Dale Lane, a veteran deputy who has since become police chief of Collierville.

Bonner is certain to do well in 2022, as well. For one thing, he will have no opposition this year from a Republican candidate. The local GOP ICS has petitioned for primaries in all county races except that for sheriff.

Asked why, Cary Vaughn, current chairman of the Shelby County Republican Party, said, “We think he [Bonner] has done an exemplary job and deserves everybody’s support. We believe in leadership, and we think that’s what he’s offered.”

The GOP’s position recaps in a way the enthusiasm of former Sheriff Bill Oldham, Bonner’s predecessor and a Republican, who endorsed Democrat Bonner, rather than Lane, to succeed him in 2018.

Democrats might be entitled to feel pleased that one of their own is apparently guaranteed a conflict-free re-election contest. There is always the chance that a candidate or two will run independent campaigns for sheriff, but, lacking the backing of an organized partisan effort, any such candidate would have little chance of prevailing.

A factor mitigating Democrats’ pleasure in seeing Bonner go unopposed is, no doubt, the well-founded suspicion of an ulterior motive on the part of the Republicans. The “blue wave” county election of 2018, which saw Bonner and other Democratic candidates carried into office, was a confirmation of a demographic fact: The population of Shelby County — majority-Black and working-class — has finally begun to reflect that demographic reality in local elections as well as in presidential ones.

In the two or three county elections leading up to 2018, Republicans had managed to do well, but eventually the statistics began to tell, and GOP success in all-county balloting from now on will depend on (a) such superior organization as the party can manage, and (b) having candidates with clear crossover appeal.

In eschewing to nominate a rival candidate for sheriff, the Republicans simultaneously are hoping thereby to scale down Democrat campaign efforts generally and are husbanding their own resources for such races as that by District Attorney General Amy Weirich, seeking re-election against Democratic competition.

Ironically, there was a modest but unsuccessful effort by a few members last week in a meeting of the Shelby County Democratic Committee to seek a critical vote on Sheriff Bonner’s compliance with a federal decree on Covid protections for jail inmates.

• Like other elected political bodies elsewhere, the Shelby County Commission is working overtime in efforts to agree on a redistricting map for the next round of elections in 2022.

After several rounds of discussion, both with each other and with members of the Shelby County Schools board, also facing an election, commission members are seeking agreement on finished products for both their own election and that of SCS. A preliminary decision could come as early as Wednesday of next week, says Darrick Harris, the commission’s ex-officio assistant in the matter. Final decision is due by November.

So far, at least eight different maps have been chewed over by the participating commissioners (mainly the six incumbents who intend re-election bids: Amber Mills, District 1; David Bradford, District 2; Mick Wright, District 3; Michael Whaley, District 5; Mickell Lowery, District 8; Edmund Ford Jr., District 9; and Brandon Morrison, District 13).