Podcast Bonus: Treated ‘like I’m a dog,’ says one man jailed as a child by Rutherford County

Quinterrius Frazier was 15 years old when he was arrested for aggravated robbery and held in the Rutherford County Juvenile Detention Center. When staff said he was being disruptive — flashing gang signs and rapping, they claimed — he was placed in solitary confinement.

This meant jail staff stripped everything out of his cell — all his bedding and personal belongings — placed a board over his window and left him with nothing but a Bible and a cup. Quinterrius was let out for one hour a day to, say, dribble a basketball alone in a room with a TV playing.

“I am sitting in there just looking at myself. Thinking a lot of crazy bad thoughts. A lot of crazy bad thoughts,” he said. The jail called the practice “lockdown” or “confinement,” and it could last anywhere from half a day to an “indefinite” period of time, according to the jail’s operating procedures. Quinterrius, who spent much of his youth cycling in and out of the Rutherford County juvenile detention center, was once locked in solitary for eight days straight.

“It kinda clicked,” he told me. “That like, wow, they are treating me like I am a dog. Or like I’m an animal or something.”

More: Listen to “The Kids of Rutherford County.”

It was after the county’s juvenile judge placed Quinterrius in solitary indefinitely that his lawyers filed an emergency complaint with the federal court, arguing that what Rutherford County was doing to Quinterrius amounted to cruel and unusual punishment. The federal judge agreed, calling the practice “inhumane” and issuing an injunction that demanded Rutherford County let Quinterrius out of solitary confinement immediately.

It’s been almost seven years now, and Quinterrius still feels the effects of being locked up in a cell for 23 hours a day — he has trouble with small spaces, and he needs constant stimulation. Trauma has a way of lingering like that.

Listen to more about Quinterrius and other people who were arrested and jailed as children in Episode 3 of “The Kids of Rutherford County,” WPLN News’ new podcast in collaboration with Serial Productions, The New York Times and ProPublica.