Across the country, states have been reducing their youth prison capacity as juvenile crime has declined and research shows such facilities are not effective at preventing future offenses. From 2000 to 2022, the number of the highest-security facilities for children has dropped by more than 40%, according to the most recent federal data. This trend reflects a broader shift toward community-based programs and a growing understanding that incarceration often fails to rehabilitate young offenders. In contrast, Tennessee's Department of Children's Services (DCS) has budgeted $360 million to build two new facilities with a total of up to 256 new beds for youth. Construction is set to begin this fall, with the facilities expected to open in 2028 and 2029. Tennessee officials say the state lacks enough space for youth who have been found guilty of crimes by courts. In recent years, the state has held dozens of teens overnight in temporary locations, including office buildings. In an email response to WPLN and ProPublica, the agency attributed the lack of beds to factors such as the need for specific mental health services and temporary staffing issues. It stated that national trends do not determine whether Tennessee has enough youth beds. Juvenile crime has also declined in Tennessee, and advocates and experts argue that the state's push for more prisons does not align with the needs of the children in its care. "The argument that's made is that [juvenile crime is] worse than ever, or the kids are out of control," said Josh Rovner of The Sentencing Project. "The data doesn't back that up." Tennessee officials claim youth are committing more violent crimes, but fewer are entering the juvenile justice system. To justify its need for more youth prisons, DCS points to a recent state-commissioned study showing that police reports of violent juvenile crimes in the state have increased since 2013. However, the number of arrests and entries into the system for violent crime have decreased over the same period. Murder was the only violent crime included in the report for which arrests increased, from 15 cases in 2013 to 26 in 2024, though this number is still lower than its peak in 2018. Tennessee oversees different types of facilities for youth in the justice system, ranging from group homes to high-security prisons with barbed wire. DCS leaders said in a state hearing that the agency has reached maximum capacity and run out of beds in high-security facilities. The agency stated that the number of youth needing space in a particular type of facility can remain high day to day even as overall arrests decline. In a 2024 lawsuit over Tennessee’s juvenile justice system, advocates claimed the state is not appropriately utilizing its existing bed space, placing youth in high-security facilities without considering their need for mental health treatment and other services. Because of juvenile privacy laws, no publicly available data shows what charges lead to youth being placed in specific facilities. DCS acknowledged that it sometimes places youth in facilities based on capacity but denied that it improperly held youth in the highest-security facilities. The case is ongoing. Tennessee promised that its new prisons would be rehabilitative. Experts, however, argue that the size of the new facilities makes this mission unattainable. Unlike the adult system, the juvenile justice system is designed to rehabilitate, not punish, based on decades of research showing that youth are more capable of change. DCS told WPLN and ProPublica that the new facilities would provide care addressing the trauma youth have experienced, including behavioral health treatment tailored to individual needs. The design includes dedicated spaces for education, job training, and recreation, as well as rooms for mental health staff. The agency also describes its existing prisons as rehabilitative. All three of the state’s highest-security prisons are run by Tennessee businessman Jason Crews and his company, Wayne Halfway House. The company is required by its contract and state policy to provide mental health treatment, education, and other services to imprisoned youth. The 2024 juvenile justice lawsuit, filed by an advocacy group and multiple unnamed youth in the system, argued that the department places youth in facilities that are more punitive than rehabilitative. Some teens placed in prison, the lawsuit said, should not be there at all. The lawsuit also claimed that Tennessee’s juvenile justice facilities prevent youth from accessing education and mental health treatment. Two facilities run by Wayne Halfway House, according to the lawsuit, have had policies barring youth from attending school if they misbehave. One teen, diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety, and other mental health conditions, did not get needed individual therapy for months while in a Crews facility, the lawsuit stated, and only received a couple of hours of education each day. DCS said in a legal filing that it did not have enough information to respond to all of the specific allegations about youth mentioned in the suit but pushed back against many claims, including that youth were provided inadequate education or mental health treatment. It also denied that the teen in the Crews prison was kept from therapy or education but acknowledged that some youth in the juvenile justice system may temporarily "receive minimal educational services." A recent WPLN/ProPublica investigation uncovered several serious incidents that Crews’ facilities failed to report to the state as required. Wayne Halfway House stated that it "vehemently denies" that Crews or his company has ever discouraged staff from reporting serious or life-threatening incidents to the state. The company disputed the allegations in the lawsuit and referred the newsrooms to "numerous state audits and/or reports" that refute those claims. It declined to share the specific documents it was referencing, stating that its programs are compliant with state policies and law. Daniel Macallair, executive director of the Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, said that large-scale youth facilities are not humane or rehabilitative. He noted that any facility with more than 10 kids becomes unwieldy, distracting from rehabilitation and becoming more correctional. Research shows that larger facilities often involve harsher treatment of youth, including higher rates of sexual abuse and practices such as solitary confinement. One of the prisons that DCS is planning would have up to 160 beds, making it the largest in the state. In contrast, small, community-based programs have proven more effective in helping youth avoid future crimes. Missouri, a nationally lauded example, has established small facilities throughout the state, keeping youth — even those who commit violent crimes — close to home for therapeutic programs. Research has shown that these community-based programs are more effective and affordable and lead to low rates of reoffending and high rates of high school graduation. DCS told WPLN and ProPublica that it provides community-based services for youth who can safely remain at home. However, Tennessee data shows that the vast majority of youth in the system were not allowed to stay in their communities last year. One way to assess the rehabilitative success of youth prisons is whether youth are rearrested after release. However, Tennessee officials acknowledge that they cannot measure this in a comprehensive or accurate way because the state lacks a centralized way of tracking when a youth commits a new crime. Tennessee has pushed against outside oversight of its youth prisons. Experts say this is a crucial reform. The state says there will be a bid process to determine who will operate the new facilities. Currently, two providers run all of the state’s private youth prisons — Wayne Halfway House and Youth Opportunity Investments, a company that runs lower security facilities. In response to questions about the new facilities, Wayne Halfway House said it would not comment about its business plans. It also noted that the facilities in which it holds youth in state custody for committing a crime are classified by the state as "residential treatment centers," not youth prisons. Across the country, states use different terminology to refer to these facilities. By federal law, they are supposed to provide treatment, but they are also secure facilities, often with barbed-wire fences and cells that lock, that hold youth long-term after a court finds them responsible for a crime — similar to adult prisons. Experts say robust independent oversight is crucial to keep youth in juvenile justice facilities safe, but Tennessee does not have this. Instead, it has one agency that helps families navigate the system but lacks enforcement power and a new Juvenile Justice Review Commission tasked with releasing its first set of recommendations in 2028. In 2024, a bipartisan group of Tennessee lawmakers introduced a bill that would give oversight and enforcement power to an independent organization instead of just DCS. Under the bill, DCS would be required to suspend a facility’s license or stop placing youth there until it fixed violations. Lawmakers felt that DCS had a conflict of interest — it is responsible for both finding beds for children in these institutions and sanctioning providers if they are not following the rules or regulations. Wayne Halfway House, which pays a legislative lobbyist and also makes political donations in the state, opposed the bill. One of the bill’s sponsors said that a lobbyist for the company pushed to exempt privately run facilities from the bill, and the proposal made it into an amendment filed in the House. A lobbyist for Wayne Halfway House said at the time that the company had concerns about how the bill would "affect accountability in the governance of youth corrections in Tennessee." In a recent statement, the company said it supports the state’s policies and laws that "rigorously oversee organizations like ours and hold us to high standards for operational performance." Ultimately, the bill failed.