Why is the juvenile justice system failing
Broken: TN juvenile justice system 'broken, outdated, in catastrophic failure'
of this world when teens condemn
innocent people on the streets of
Nashville
first of all father God we want to thank
you for this precious life the vigils
may be different but the grief fills the
same the victim in this case 16 year old
de Briana Begley gunned down outside her
family's public housing apartment always
be missed a much leader who tried to
take my bank account I'll give it to you
but see bite that in life thank you for
everything it was 74 year old routine
walk shot and killed as he took out the
trash Kyle was nothing if not my best
friend and earlier this year
24 year old singer colleague or le'ts
murdered during an attempted carjacking
police were frustrated we've got to do
better
families have to do better the systems
have to do better
it is it is unfathomable juvenile crime
overall is going down Davidson County
juvenile court judge Sheila Callaway has
seen a drop in some crimes involving
kids like burglaries and aggravated
assaults the trend that keeps me up at
night that I don't get concerned about
is that our serious crimes that the
children that are committing or alleged
to have been committing murders or
aggravated robberies gun possessions
those crimes aren't necessarily going
down list your robbery charges were near
a five-year high and the number striking
auto theft involving juveniles shot up
along with the number of charges for
kids in possession of handguns you're
seeing more kids stealing cars and more
kids in possession of handguns
that's a deadly combination isn't it
yes that's exactly what I call a recipe
for disaster
lieutenant Blaine whitehead his the
Metro Nashville police departments UV no
crime task force
he calls auto theft a gateway crime
they'll start with auto theft and then
it just seems to escalate it almost
immediately will go to a violent crime
such as robbery carjacking aggravated
assault
worst case scenario a homicide
and Nashville's Juvenal crime problem is
becoming Middle Tennessee's problem with
police regularly reporting pursuits and
other crimes involving the city's youth
here a chased by Hendersonville PD ends
with five teens bailing from a stolen
car police say by and large it's repeat
offenders who are driving the crime wave
why is it still being a problem why are
we still experiencing the same youth
committing violent offenses and car
thefts over and over and over again
are they not afraid of juvenile court
from our experiences they do not a lot
of times even think there was any
consequences because they're released so
fast they don't correlate that there was
even a consequence to them being
arrested for the stolen car or the gun
by law most juvenile criminal histories
are confidential
but News Channel five investigates
obtained juvenile crime data going back
almost eight years while it did not
contain names by cross-checking specific
charges with the dates of known crimes
we developed unprecedented insight into
the path that sometimes leads to murder
what we discovered is a revolving door
that often puts teen offenders in some
cases deeply troubled children back out
on the streets again and again and again
when a child commits a murder and that
child has been in and out of the system
do you say we failed that child oh when
a child has committed murder has been
alleged to commit murder and they've
been in and out of system I definitely
believe that we as a system as a
community have failed to a child in fact
out of some 35 kids charged with
homicide since 2016 we discovered almost
two-thirds had confirmed juvenile
records that should have set off alarms
among them two of debris onna Begley's
accused killers seen here as a mother
looking at these juvenile records they
should have been locked up
we showed des Briana's mother what we
uncovered sixteen-year-old jamarius Hill
was first arrested for theft of
merchandise at age 12 by 14 it was
handgun possession and evading arrest
at 15 he pulled up a car jacking charged
with aggravated robbery auto theft and
in possession he was put on intensive
probation within six months he was
arrested twice more the same way these
kids getting out here doing these crimes
is like an adult doing crimes they need
to be charged as adults doing these
crimes
six months later des Briana was killed
we can't be lenient on him cuz they're
gonna keep going out here doing who want
to keep losing innocent family members
to juveniles who want to keep getting up
everyone in their cars gone their house
shot up juveniles juveniles juveniles no
y'all got to be more harder on these
juveniles and maybe the streets to be a
little better locking in love is not
always the best answer Judge Callaway
says she's trying to provide
interventions that give kids a chance to
become productive members of society and
not inmates that taxpayers will have to
pay to keep behind bars for the rest of
their lives those who get locked up
usually are the ones that are least
likely to graduate the ones that get
locked up are the ones that are more
likely to end up in the adult system but
some people will say locking them
protects the public what we have to do
in order to protect the public is to put
more services and research and resources
into every child shot him checked him
out here the murder of the Asian
tourists Racine Wolcott came just eight
months after the alleged shooter 16 year
old nyesha Brown was arrested for auto
theft and other charges just two months
before the shooting she'd been arrested
for heme gun possession and released on
intensive gang probation when Kelly your
Liz was killed during an apparent
carjacking all type of the suspects ages
12 to 16 were known to police our
investigation discovered that one of the
suspects a 13 year old boy whose name
has not been released have been arrested
for auto theft less than three weeks
before a juvenile law prohibits local
detention facilities local judges from
detaining juveniles in many of the
situations where they need to tension
the most former juvenile prosecutor Jim
Todd said that in many cases the judge
his hands are tied because the tension
is not a tool that can be used for
nonviolent offenses the first time a
twelve-year-old steals a car and was
arrested with some crack cocaine they're
gonna get sent home that night the
mother that wasn't watching him at 2:00
a.m. is gonna get called and say come
get your kid because by law in Tennessee
they can't be detained he pointed to the
1997 case of Terrence Maclaurin who is
convicted of murder at the age of 12 but
the mandate that they must go home and
can't be detained is teaching the kid
the wrong message Terrence Maclaurin
said after being arrested for murder I
couldn't believe they didn't let me go
home you're not burning your hand on the
stove you're not learning that the stove
is hot at a very very early age doing
the same thing over over and over and
over again and expecting a different
result I would love to be able to prior
to releasing that child to that parent
is to do an assessment on what that
child needs what that parent needs and
to figure out you know what can we put
in the home prior to us releasing them
back to that home without anything we
don't have the ability to do that now
one option that judges do have is to
commit juvenile offenders to the custody
of the State Department of Children
Services when you send a child to DCs
it's because you feel like that child
needs to be treated in a secure facility
that is correct for that child's
protection in the community safety as
well and what guarantee do you have that
that child will actually be locked up I
have no guarantee that that child would
actually locked up
after DCs experienced unrest at its
prison-like
youth development centers five years ago
it moved to a different model the agency
now has less than 150 high-security beds
statewide they rely on less secure
facilities operated by private companies
to treat and rehabilitate some of the
state's most troubled kids so if you as
the judge say this child needs to be
taken off the streets of Nashville it's
possible D cska send that child back two
days from now it is possible it happens
I don't know if it happens within two
days but I have seen some cases where I
may question
a community placement that they've
they've chosen for a child back in March
and uber driver was shot during an
attempted carjacking the alleged shooter
16 year old David Earl Mays was first
arrested for burglary at age 10 at age
12 handgun position and theft of
merchandise again at 13 for hanging
possession and assault at 14 he was
placed in DCs custody at 15 he was again
arrested for aggravated robbery auto
theft and handgun possession he was sent
back to DCs at the time of the shooting
the agency had let Mays out on a weekend
pass you know I go back to a lot of
these juveniles that I talk to when I
was a prosecutor and they just all say
the same thing
had I known had I known I would never
have kept doing what I was doing and
they say that when they were in t do C
custody servant 30 years had I know what
consequences it's a system that leaves
our fellow citizens knowing a grief they
wish they had never known is there any
doubt that the juvenile system is broken
brokens too nice of a word for it it's
outdated it's broken it's in
catastrophic failure
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