NASHVILLE, Tenn. (WTVF) — A bill backed by the Tennessee Department of Children's Services would allow some foster children to be placed in juvenile detention facilities — even if they have never been charged with a crime.
Right now, only children charged with a crime can be held in a juvenile detention center.
The proposed legislation would create a new classification of foster children called "Children in Need of Heightened Supervision," which could allow a court to send those children to a juvenile jail.
DCS said the bill is about safety — for children and workers.
Critics worry it is a way for the agency to end the embarrassment of foster kids sleeping in offices by moving some to jails.
Vanderbilt Law Professor Cara Suvall said the bill creates a system that lacks the protections typically afforded to young people in the justice system.
"It's basically a shadow juvenile justice system without the clarity without the specificity and without the protections for young people," Suvall said.
Suvall said she has not seen a proposal like this any where else in the country.
"I don't know of a single other state that is handling this issue this way, so it's a pretty shocking proposal," Suvall said.
DCS Legislative Director Jim Layman defended the bill, saying some foster children in the agency's care act out violently.
"We have an issue where we are receiving children into custody that are dependent and neglected," Layman said.
"The court has ruled them dependent or neglected but their behaviors don't match what you think are an abused or abandoned or neglected child," Layman said.
DCS Commissioner Margie Quin said violent children need to be held accountable.
"That lack of accountability gives rise to additional violent behavior," Quin said.
The bill comes two years after DCS quietly changed its policy to allow abused and neglected children to be handcuffed.
NewsChannel 5 Investigates previously reported on a 12-year-old believed to have autism — placed in a transitional home because his family could not care for him — who was double-cuffed after refusing to go to bed.
Ella Bat-Ami is a foster care success story.
She went from state custody to college, and last year testified in the legislature about a bill she wrote — the foster care bill of rights.
That bill passed. Now she is focused on opposing this new proposal.
"It functionally criminalizes being a child, just because these kids are in foster care," Bat-Ami said.
Bat-Ami is concerned DCS is trying to avoid accountability for keeping children in offices or poorly run transition homes by shifting blame to the children themselves.
"The current DCS administration is questioned about their practices of keeping children in unsafe DCS offices and they dodge accountability by blaming the child," Bat-Ami said.
She said it is natural for traumatized children to act out — especially those sleeping in a state office with no foster family placement. She said she could only shower twice a week after first entering foster care.
"Yeah, they are going to act out. Does that make them dangerous children? No, because to be honest, pretty much any adult would do the same thing," Bat-Ami said.
Bat-Ami is encouraging lawmakers to change the bill or vote against it.
"I need them to understand that under this bill I would also have been classified as a bad kid just because of my reaction to traumatic events," Bat-Ami said.
"To be in foster care is really to just not know if the next week you'll be across state lines, in a facility, in an office," Bat-Ami said.
DCS said it does not comment on pending legislation.
The bill (SB1868) is up for a legislative hearing next week.
We will follow the bill and report on any changes.
