Rutherford County’s juvenile detention facility is under increased oversight, yet still expanding its reach

Rutherford County’s juvenile justice system has come under fire for locking up kids at rates that surpass every other county in Tennessee. And it doesn’t just detain its own kids. The detention center contracts with counties across the state and charges a daily rate.

While the system is under increased oversight, it is a handful of contracts away from housing kids throughout the state. The center’s connections have grown over the years, despite being part of a multimillion-dollar settlement for illegally detaining and jailing children.

The facility has even tried to expand out of state. In a promotional video from 2017, then-juvenile court judge Donna Scott Davenport boasts that the facility has “easy access to three of the state’s major interstates,” and that “counties located in Kentucky, Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia are within a two or three hour driving range.”

But at the latest oversight meeting, the long-time head of the facility, Lynn Duke, said that video was “frowned upon,” and that the facility does not currently have any contracts across state lines.

The facility’s in-state expansion includes contracts with 41 counties and it’s on the brink of adding another contract with Cheatham County.