The incidence of prison violence at the Shelby County Sheriff's Office in Memphis has skyrocketed after it took control of the state's Juvenile Detention. An increasingly high number of young detainees have been injured and assaulted since the transfer back in July 2015.
According to The Commercial Appeal, use of mechanical restraints in the facility has risen 303 percent since last year. Suicide behaviors and youth-on-youth assaults have also increased, 36 and 31 percent respectively.
"Initially we had a spike in population. With that population we had some bad kids," said detention chief Kirk Fields. "Some of those kids were assaultive in nature. And they were bullies. And they attacked other kids."
Fields assured that the Sheriff's Office is doing everything it can to reduce the glaring figures. He stated that the facility has adopted a system in which maximum peace and order is ensured.
"We have a ratio. For every 8 kids, we have one officer present. So we have gone to a more direct management style of supervision, Fields explained. "We have given our staff direct assignments and they are building a relationship with those kids."
Bill Powell, Shelby County's compliance report coordinator, believed the increase in prison violence was a result of weak foresight on the facility's part. He told WREG-TV that officials were overwhelmed by the surge of new detainees and that planning for the transition could have been considerably better.
Despite the increase in prison violence, the Sheriff's Office reported that the number of young detainees have actually decreased in recent years. Same can be said on the number of delinquent youths transferred to Criminal Court.
Parents, on the other hand, expected more from the authorities. "You as adults, you are supposed to still have leniency for kids on how to deal with them. Y'all get paid and trained on how to deal with these kids, why are you having so many problems?" a father from South Memphis barked.
