More than two years after their last in-person meeting, members of the Juvenile Justice Board gathered on the campus of the University of Tennessee Health Science Center Tuesday, June 7, to “reintroduce” the board to community members and to discuss the rising youth gun violence in the city. 

The Juvenile Justice Board was founded more than a decade ago as a way to provide advice and direction to schools and community organizations in the development of gang intervention and school safety programs. It also seeks to work with community partners to improve programs and make policy changes that advocate for the needs of local youth at risk of delinquency. 

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“Those are the things that we wanted to make sure happen for the Juvenile Justice Board, that they’d be the voice for children and the community,” said Ronald Pope, former chair of the board. “I would like to see the Juvenile Justice Board still be that entity.”

Pope added that the board members are the “movers and shakers,” who, as leaders of their organizations, can make real change in the community.

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The board consists of 26 members from entities including Memphis-Shelby County Schools, Boys and Girls Club of Memphis, the District Attorney’s Office, Shelby County government and UTHSC. It is chaired by Gwendolyn Wright, Memphis/Shelby County regional coordinator of the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth.

State Rep. Torrey Harris moderated the panel discussion with panelists Altha Stewart, MD, senior associate dean for Community Health Engagement and director of the UTHSC Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being; Juvenile Court Judge Dan Michael; and Deputy Chief of Security for Memphis-Shelby County Schools Gregory Sanders.

The panelists were first asked how their organizations affect the community. 

Stewart said the UTHSC Center for Youth Advocacy and Well-Being acts much like the Juvenile Justice Board in that it was created as “a solution to a problem.” The center, which has a $200,000 annual budget, also seeks to affect legislative change and advocates for youth who are at risk of entering the criminal justice system for reasons such as trauma or untreated mental illness. 

The five programs implemented within the center: Building Strong Brains TN ACEs Initiative (BSB), Gang Intervention Focusing on Families and Trauma Supports (GIFFTS), Integrated Care for Child Wellness (ICCW), South Memphis Gang Intervention Model to Prevent Adverse Child Trauma (IMPACT) and Shelby Connects Network (SCN). 

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Stewart also said she has been running a campaign to change the language within the juvenile justice system.

“I’ve been on a campaign, for example, to change our language from calling kids ‘juveniles’ to making them children again,” she said. “When we think of them as children, we behave more like they are children. We consider them in the context of childhood. We consider child development and the role that it plays in why they are where they are today when they are in front of the courts or the law enforcement.”

Sanders said the safety of the school district’s 100,000 students is his priority. 

“We’re not about arresting our students,” he said. “We’re protecting our children, educating our children and making sure our children have the opportunities. We want them to be successful in life. … What we do at Memphis-Shelby County Schools is we ‘Reimagine’ everything we do.”

He said his work keeping children out of the criminal justice system began when he was a colonel overseeing the Old Allen and Raines Stations within the Memphis Police Department. There, he implemented an intervention and prevention program for children, often acting as a liaison for resources youth needed. 

Michael said the juvenile court system strives to keep children from entering a school-to-prison pipeline, which is the process of a child being pushed out of school and into the criminal justice system. Often, it starts out with a student acting out in class and getting referred to a school resource officer, who transports the child to juvenile hall. Thus, the child is funneled into the criminal justice system, increasing the risk for repeat offending. 

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He said the juvenile court partnered with MSCS and other government agencies to start the School House Adjustment Program Enterprise (S.H.A.P.E.) program, which aims to reduce the number of students who get funneled into the juvenile justice system for minor infractions. 

“In my early years of juvenile court, then-Judge (Kenneth) Turner sent me as a liaison to the school to reduce the number of children coming in from Memphis City Schools,” Michael said. “On average, we received about 800 to 900 children a month from Memphis-Shelby County Schools prior to S.H.A.P.E. … I’m very proud to tell you that last year, for the whole year, I think we got 112 children from Memphis-Shelby County Schools.”

Juvenile Court has implemented numerous other programs throughout the community, like Memphis Allies, a collaborative effort between Youth Villages and partner organizations to curb gun violence.

Michael said, in the past eight years, the juvenile court system has reduced transports to the juvenile court by law enforcement by 78%.

When panelists were asked to comment on the rise of gun violence, Sanders attributed the issue to a constitutional carry law recently passed by the state that allows people to carry guns without a permit. 

“When they allowed people to carry guns in cars, theft in vehicles went through the roof,” Sanders said. 

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During a City Council committee meeting in April, Memphis Police Chief Cerelyn “C.J.” Davis said gun thefts were up 35.4% from the year before. 

Michael referenced a recent executive order signed by Gov. Bill Lee that creates a “School Safety Resources and Engagement Guide” for parents. It requires state agencies to “provide additional guidance to help local school districts (LEAs) implement existing school safety law.” 

Instead, he said, laws should be passed making it more difficult to find guns. 

“This year alone, maybe 1,800 handguns were stolen from cars because people now can carry them without a license,” Michael said. “They can’t go to school with them. So they put them on in the front seat. A 15-year-old comes by and flips the door handle, reaches up in the front seat, picks it up, takes it and moves to the next car. Think about that.”

Both Sanders and Stewart said youth lack “respect for life.” 

“We have no regard for life,” Sanders said. “We have to make sure that we get our children and teach them, ‘Hey, look, guys, life is bad. Your life is tragic.’ Because no matter what the conflict is, we can talk about conflict resolution. And we can talk about things we teach them to try not to go down that path. But we have to be real to ourselves, too.”

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He added: “We have to get the community involved. And Memphis-Shelby County Schools, we get involved. We try to go beyond just the classroom.”

Stewart said the role of the Juvenile Justice Board is to protect and to bring authority and neutrality to the collaborative group to represent the children. 

“These are our children,” she said. “They deserve better. These are the images that you see on the 10 o’clock news of the wild-looking child that has just committed this heinous crime. These are our children.”

Michael said the environment in which many youths can trigger a fight or flight response triggered from their amygdala, which is not fully developed. 

“They don’t know where the next blow is coming,” he said. “Those are the children who pick up guns and hurt people. Those are the children who steal cars. Those are the children who’ve done burglaries. Why? Because they have to survive. They don’t know any other way to survive.”

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The crime could also be attributed to the fact that there is not enough economic development in the city and its schools and that citizens should vote for officials who can “change the system,” Michael said.

Harris said he recently visited the Wilder Youth Development Center following reports of abuse, and he found that the detainees were afraid of going back to the streets. 

“One of the young men, he was like, ‘I get out at 12 noon tomorrow. But I’m really scared to go back to the neighborhood because I feel like I’m going to get trapped into it again,’” Harris said. 

Stewart issued a call to action to those in attendance, asking them to consider joining the board, saying everyone has a role to play.

The next Juvenile Justice Board meeting will occur via Zoom July 12.