Sen. Thelma Harper (D-Nashville) spoke with the Davidson County delegation Monday about keeping the New Visions Youth Development Center open amid talks of closing due to budget cuts. From the Tennessean:
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By NATE RAU/The Tennessean
When boys incarcerated at Woodland Hills Youth Development started a riot and tried to escape the state-run facility in 2004, one of the first things several of them did was seek out their fellow female prisoners to have sex.
State Sen. Thelma Harper revealed details of that riot during a meeting of the Davidson County legislative delegation Monday, pushing fellow lawmakers to reconsider the prospective closing of the girls-only New Visions Youth Development Center for budget reasons.
Harper worried that similar incidents would occur again if Nashville's New Visions is closed and the approximately 20 girls housed there are moved to adjacent Woodland Hills.
"What they found in those closets and those crevices in the ground was boys and girls having sex," Harper said. "The staff had to tear those young women to a hospital to have them tested to make some determinations. But that was not nearly all of it — this went on for a very, very long time.
"This is where we're talking about sending the girls back to. And those are not the only incidents we've had."
Earlier this year a report by the U.S. Department of Justice showed that Woodland Hills had one of the highest rates of sex abuse of any state-run juvenile detention facility in the country.
State Rep. Brenda Gilmore said the proposal to move about 20 girls to Woodland Hills, which houses about 140 boys, was a "tragedy waiting to happen."
Opened four years ago, New Visions is the only girls-only juvenile facility in the state. The Department of Children's Services said closing New Visions would save the state about $2.5 million per year.
"In a perfect world, there'd be no reason for us to be here today," DCS Deputy Commission Steve Hornsby said during the discussion.
Members of the New Visions board of directors also appeared at Monday's meeting, arguing that female juvenile delinquents need special programming that requires them to be separate from boys.
Citing a 2004 report from the Child Welfare League of America, board member Lois Wagner said, top gender-specific "programming need for girls is a safe space, physically and emotionally, that is removed from the attention of adolescent boys."
Also appearing at the special meeting was Davidson County Juvenile Court Judge Betty Adams Green, who worried that a disproportionate percentage of the proposed budget cut for DCS was coming from juvenile justice programs. Of the proposed $16 million cut, approximately $11.5 million would come from juvenile justice.
"The girls have been short-changed for years," Green said.
State Sen. Douglas Henry said it was premature to discuss keeping the New Visions facility open until it could be learned where the $2.5 million would be cut instead by DCS.
"I don't see how a legislator can have an opinion on this until we have seen the alternative," Henry said.
But Harper said the issue went deeper than budget savings because the welfare of the girls housed at New Visions was at stake.
"We're talking about individuals, not just dollars," Harper said.
DCS has not announced plans for the New Visions facility. Hornsby said Monday that the state would like to consider reopening New Visions in the future if the budget allowed.
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