Serious crimes by juveniles down in Tennessee
A total of 769 youths were held in the four centers in 2003, a 4 percent drop from the 802 detained in 2002.
“We have evidence that crime in general is going down,” Debrah Stafford, juvenile justice director at the Commission on Children and Youth, told the Chattanooga Times Free Press. “The number of young people being placed in facilities for serious criminal offenses is going down.”
The number of aggravated rapes by juveniles dropped 38 percent from 1995 to 2000, according to statistics from the Tennessee Council of Juvenile Court Judges. Arsons dropped 52 percent, and aggravated robberies 58 percent.
Stafford credited increased federal funds for juvenile justice programs for helping with the decrease. Tennessee received a $4 million grant in 1998 and more funding from two other sources for juvenile crime.
“We started using those funds for projects to help juvenile courts reduce the backlog of cases, for prevention programs and to help with probation officers,” Stafford said. “I think those funds helped.”
Gary Morris, superintendent of Mountain View Youth Development Center in Dandridge said he’s not as sure what caused the drop after a decade of increases.
But he credits the state Department of Children’s Services with pushing more children from foster care into permanent homes.
“My take is that there was a trickle-down effect,” he said. “As DCS got better getting kids into homes faster, that got kids who may have gone into contract care out and back into their own homes.”
The drop of juveniles being held is prompting DCS to shuffle staff at the development centers, and up to 53 workers may be reassigned. Spokeswoman Margie Maddux said it was not clear which workers will be moved or when it might happen.
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