Over the past decade, juvenile crime where a gun was involved has increased by 26%, according to data from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.
“But then, when we look at crimes where a firearm was used against a youth victim, that’s gone up by 144%,” says Kylie Graves with the Tennessee Commission on Children and Youth. “People under 18 are more likely themselves to be the victim than they are to be the offender or a perpetrator.”
Overall, juvenile crime has actually decreased in Tennessee, year-over-year and decade-over-decade. Statewide, juvenile arrests went down by nearly 57% from 2012 to 2022.
“There’s no way that those numbers are accurate,” says House Speaker Cameron Sexton.
Sexton has advocated for juveniles who commit certain crimes to get harsher sentences. He first floated the idea of using this week’s special legislative session on public safety to toughen juvenile sentencing in an interview with the Tennessee Firearms Association.
Since then, Gov. Bill Lee has released a proclamation for the special session which calls for “blended” sentencing. That would allow certain teens to receive both juvenile and adult sentences.
“If you’re 16, 17 years old and you premeditated killed somebody, I think you should be charged in adult court. Two-year sentence is too soft,” Sexton tells WPLN News.
But any prison time can still take its toll.
As a young teen, Ashlee Sellars spent more than two years in solitary confinement at an adult prison.
“No one is meant to be in solitary confinement. We are social beings. You know, we thrive better together,” she says. “I think there’s a ton of trauma that comes along with being isolated and punished in that way, caged in that way.”
Sellars is now the director of restorative justice initiatives at the Raphah Institute. She says proposals like Sexton’s ask the wrong questions.
“We stop asking like, ‘What has happened to you?’ And start really just asking like, ‘What’s wrong with you?’ And I think there has to be a shift there,” Sellars says.
But this legislative session won’t give as much room to criminal justice advocates like Sellars to raise these concerns. Lawmakers are expected to adjourn by the end of the week, which doesn’t give a lot of time for expert testimony or debate.
State Sen. Jeff Yarbro, a Democrat, says that’s disappointing.
“It’s a sad commentary on where we are as a state that we’re not willing to think about regulating firearms in any meaningful way, but we’re willing to consider giving up on children who are as young as 15 and 16.”
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