Tennessee leaders are exploring whether to replace the Wilder Youth Development Center in Fayette County, where reports have documented abuses by the staff. It’s also a facility where, according to various sources, most of the detained are Black youth with intellectual or developmental disabilities.

Scathing reports by Disability Rights Tennessee and the Youth Law Center describe a dangerous environment for staff and the people detained there, with inadequate educational or mental health resources.

Wilder is not overcrowded — in fact, it holds far fewer people than it did a few years ago — but it is aging and understaffed, and many agree it is poorly designed for its current use.

“We really need a new facility,” said state Rep. Torrey Harris (D-Memphis). “It’s not in the best condition. It’s hard to treat them right in a bad place.”

Wilder, which opened in 1971, was part of a focus by the General Assembly’s Joint Ad Hoc Committee on Juvenile Justice, which met throughout the second half of last year and announced its legislative recommendations in January.

While many experts in the field say the incarceration of juveniles is counterproductive and leads to higher rates of recidivism and trauma, top Tennessee lawmakers and the Department of Children’s Services say Wilder needs more capacity. The state wants to add 180-190 beds for male juvenile detainees and about 25 for female detainees, officials say.

But Wilder won’t be replaced soon.

Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee’s proposed fiscal year 2024 budget includes no funds for a new facility, and the spokeswoman for the Department of Children’s Services, Alex Denis, said there are no plans to do so, no timeline and no estimate of how much it would cost.

Ernst & Young is producing a report for the Tennessee Department of General Services on where an ideal site might be for a new facility. Denis said she’s expecting the report to be available within a month.

“DCS is committed to providing the best possible treatment and programming for Tennessee youth, and a number of improvements are already underway at Wilder Youth Development Center,” Denis stated in an email.

‘It does not help develop youth’

Various news organizations and the state comptroller have documented a range of systemic failures at DCS, but many Tennesseans learned about Wilder after Disability Rights Tennessee and the Youth Law Center published a report titled "Designed to Fail" in April 2022.

The April report, based on a year of investigation, found that staff did not seek aid for injured detainees, engaged in inappropriate sexual relationships with them and encouraged violence.

“Wilder Youth Development Center is not what the name implies,” Jack Derryberry, Disability Rights Tennessee’s legal director, said in the press release that accompanied the report.

“It does not help develop youth, rather it is run like a dangerous prison when it should be providing safety, treatments, education and rehabilitative services that youth need to have a healthy and productive transition into adulthood as community members, and on a successful track.”

In a December follow-up report, Disability Rights Tennessee and the Youth Law Center advocated against juvenile incarceration.

Former DCS commissioner Sen. Page Walley (R-Savannah) said in an interview last year that “there was a lot of accuracy” to the Disability Rights Tennessee report but that it was “incomplete” and a “snapshot in time.” 

“There have been some substantial changes,” Walley said. “They didn’t cite much of the very positive things that have been going on at Wilder.”

Fewer detainees, higher costs

Wilder, which detains people ages 14 to 18, is the only state-run, hardware secure juvenile detention facility currently in use. The state contracts with private providers to detain other offenders, some of whom are placed in facilities in other states.

Denis said Wilder currently has 45 detainees; they face charges of first degree murder, attempted murder, carjacking, aggravated robbery and more. All of the charges are felonies, but not all of them are violent; they include marijuana possession and possession of cocaine with intent to sell

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The cost per occupancy day at Wilder has risen by more than four times since 2016, as the number of detainees has dropped.

An average of 116 people were detained per day at Wilder in 2016-2017, according to Lee’s proposed budget; that fell to an average daily census of 37 in 2022-2023. Meanwhile, the cost per person per day rose from $323 to $1,502.

“Each fiscal year, the state budget allocates the funding needed to operate Wilder Youth Development Center with an average of 120 occupants,” Denis stated. “As the population at Wilder changes over time, this level of funding ensures the facility has the resources needed to operate and provide quality care at any capacity.”

Denis said the starting salary for security officers has risen from about $27,000 to about $37,000; as a result, the department has seen an increase in job applications.

A DCS timeline shows various reforms at Wilder, namely under former Gov. Bill Haslam. In 2015, Wilder and other facilities stopped using confinement as a form of discipline; in 2018, according to the timeline, Wilder was the first youth detention center in the country to be accredited under a system that prohibited officers from using certain types of physical restraints.

But officials blamed the center’s recent problems on that accreditation and its constraints. DCS is now attempting to return to a more carceral accreditation system that allows officers to use more physical force to restrain youth.

“Tennessee’s approach balances security and treatment, which is consistent with the (American Correctional Association’s) recently enhanced focus on treatment,” Denis said.

Legislation and budget items

Two bills in this year’s legislative session have to do with Wilder.

One creates a “step-down” pilot program that offers a home-like setting for certain juveniles to help them transition out of state custody. Molly Gormley, the spokeswoman for the Senate Republican Caucus, said the bill is intended to “incentivize good behavior.”

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The bill states the program “may be modeled after the Tennessee Children’s Homes programs.”

Tennessee Children’s Homes is a Christian residential care facility with four locations across the state.

“Wilder Youth Development Center is not what the name implies.It does not help develop youth, rather it is run like a dangerous prison.”

Jack Derryberry
Disability Rights Tennessee’s legal director

“Those served by Tennessee Children’s Home will learn to live healthy physical, mental, social and Christian lives,” the organization’s website states.

The other bill, sponsored by Harris, would rename the school at Wilder after the late state Rep. Barbara Cooper (D-Memphis).

Lee’s budget includes $324,000 for “coding classes and re-entry employment services for youth at Wilder Youth Development Center to reduce recidivism and increase the potential of successful re-entry for justice-involved youth.”

Denis also mentioned two associate degree programs offered at the center.

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Lee is proposing more pay raises for teachers and case workers at Wilder, as well as $1.3 million to fund the operation of a re-entry facility in an unused building not related to Wilder.

Denis said the purpose of that funding is “to operate a transitional community and housing facility for youth who are preparing to complete their stay in a secured detention facility. This would allow them to transition to a lower security facility, where they can practice life skills and prepare for a successful return to their community.”

Youth incarceration has dropped, but racial disparities are worse

Data show youth incarceration has dropped considerably in recent decades, both nationwide and in Tennessee.

But despite the steep drop, stark racial disparities remain, and they are worse in Tennessee.

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In 2001, according to data compiled by the Annie E. Casey Foundation, there were 104,219 incarcerated people under 21-years-old in the United States, a rate of 334 per 100,000. By 2019, that had fallen to 36,479 people, or 114 per 100,000.

Tennessee was below the national average in both years, with a per-100,000 rate of 259 in 2001 and 50 in 2019. Only five states, four of them in New England, had lower youth incarceration rates.

Tennessee held 605 youth in state custody in 2021-2022, an increase of about 9% from the year before, according to DCS’ most recent annual report. About 2,100 youth had spent time in diversion programs or on probation; 353 spent time in a hardware-secure facility in fiscal year 2022.

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But while Tennessee incarcerates fewer minors than the national average, that only holds true for white individuals. The racial disparity grew in Tennessee while it fell nationwide from 2015 to 2019, according to the Sentencing Project; Tennessee had the second-most growth in that disparity.

Black minors in Tennessee were incarcerated at a rate 4.6 times higher than white minors, a per-100,000 rate of 124 for Black juveniles vs. 27 for white juveniles.

Despite the drop, the U.S. still has the highest incarceration rates in the world for both youth and adults.

‘It’s hard to treat them right in a bad place’

Though the Disability Rights Tennessee report and investigations by the Tennessean and Nashville NewsChannel 5 documented physical abuse and neglect at Wilder, Harris said he didn’t see that when he visited last fall.

“A lot of students were like, ‘No, we feel safe and cared for here.’ ... It looks very much so as if they’re doing fine.”

Harris said the school on the Wilder campus seemed normal, complete with decorated walls.

“It feels like a regular school when you go into it,” he said. “It kind of reminds me of where I grew up.”

But he said it felt more like a prison in the sleeping and living areas, and the bathrooms were unacceptable, lacking privacy.

He said he hopes to push for a new facility to be funded in the fiscal year 2025 budget.

Harris visited with other lawmakers and state officials, but he and state Rep. Jesse Chism (D-Memphis) made sure to talk to some of the kids in a smaller group; Harris said most of the minors at the facility were from Memphis and seemed to be more open and honest when the only adults in the room were Black Memphians.

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“It felt natural,” he said.

He said he told them, “I was your age, I was dealing with the same life issues. I may have handled them a little differently, but I was literally dealing with identical life issues.”

“Hey, this isn’t the end for you,” he said. “We need you to get it together while you’re in here, (but) we want you to have the opportunity to start over.”