Memphis-Shelby County Juvenile Court Judge Tarik Sugarmon said during an open house at the county’s juvenile detention on Nov. 12 that he first learned that children inside the center were being kept in solitary confinement this summer.
His comments appear to contradict reporting from MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. An MLK50 investigation found that court officials talked about the use of solitary confinement in at least one private meeting attended by Sugarmon in spring 2025. And in 2023, a consultant hired by the court found that children were confined to their cells for most of the day; it appears likely that Sugarmon knew of this report, too.
Youth incarcerated in the center between 2023 and 2025 told MLK50 they were regularly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day or more. This practice is referred to as “23-and-1.” Tennessee law forbids keeping children in seclusion, a synonym for solitary confinement, for more than two continuous hours.
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Sugarmon said he found out about the center’s use of solitary confinement when it was mentioned during a town hall meeting in June. “There was a person who raised the question of 23-and-1,” he said. “That was the first I’d heard of it.”
But in March 2025 — months before the town hall — Sugarmon attended a private meeting where participants discussed the use of 23-and-1 at the center. One participant gave MLK50 a recording of the entire meeting, which was held to discuss the juvenile detention center transition. In the audio, Sugarmon clearly identifies himself as an attendee at the meeting’s inception. Other attendees who identified themselves included other court officials and several members of County Mayor Lee Harris’ administration.
During the meeting, Erica Evans, the court’s chief judicial officer, acknowledged that children incarcerated in the center were held in solitary confinement in apparent violation of state rules.
One attendee brought up claims that youth in the center had been held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day.
“When we’re talking about visitation and 23-and-1, Tennessee rules explicitly discuss that and what the minimum requirements are, and we know they’re not being met right now,” Evans said in response.
In the court’s hierarchy, Evans is second only to Sugarmon, according to an organizational chart included in the court’s annual report.
While the juvenile court does not manage the center, its magistrates send youth to the facility. Sugarmon himself regularly holds court hearings inside the center.
A court spokesperson declined to comment on MLK50’s reporting. “At this time, Judge Sugarmon does not have anything further to add beyond the statement he made publicly at the Youth Justice and Education Center,” she wrote.
Court officials may have been aware that things were amiss at the center well before this March 2025 meeting, according to court documents MLK50 obtained via records request.
In November 2023, a consultant hired by the court visited the Youth Justice and Education Center. His official report on the visit, which was issued in July 2024 and obtained via a records request, noted that “a significant number of youth were confined in their rooms,” and were not attending school. The consultant also wrote that “unit D is being operated as a behavioral confinement unit” and within unit D, “most, if not all youth” had not been let out of their rooms that day.
According to sources who spoke with MLK50, all youth in housing unit D were held in solitary confinement almost around the clock. A spokesman for the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office, which ran the center until October 1 of this year, denied that youth were held in isolation in these units.
It seems likely that Sugarmon knew of the report’s existence. The court appears to have shared the consultant’s preliminary findings with the sheriff shortly after the visit. In response, Sheriff Floyd Bonner sent several letters directly to Sugarmon. In these letters, shared with MLK50 by a sheriff’s representative, Bonner complained that Sugarmon “had engaged people to assess the facility without consulting our team.”
Bonner also raised concerns that court magistrates had started to incarcerate more children than usual at the center. “It is no secret that there are 90 to 100+ youth in the facility every day,” Bonner wrote. “That far exceeds what was anticipated and planned for by the SCSO and our partners.”
The number of youth incarcerated at the center began to rise in mid-2023, according to juvenile court and sheriff’s office data. During the same period, the number of youth charged with serious offenses declined slightly. The population of the center remained high through 2025.
“We do NOT keep children in solitary confinement,” a spokesperson for the sheriff’s office wrote to MLK50. Still, he did acknowledge that “when the population was between 100-120, the number of youth who could be out of their rooms with officers was more limited.”
On October 1, Shelby County’s Division of Corrections took over operations of the detention center from the Shelby County Sheriff’s Office. The sheriff had operated the facility for nearly 10 years. Just before the transition, MLK50: Justice Through Journalism reported that from 2023 through 2025, the sheriff’s office routinely held children as young as 13 in solitary confinement for weeks or months inside the center.
During the same Nov. 12 public meeting where Sugarmon made his comments, Division of Corrections Director Anthony Alexander said his department doesn’t use solitary confinement.
“Let’s talk about the big elephant in the room: solitary confinement,” he said. “We don’t use solitary confinement in the Division of Corrections, and we have eliminated it here.”
Rebecca Cadenhead is the youth life and justice reporter for MLK50: Justice Through Journalism. She is also a corps member with Report for America, a national service program that places journalists in local newsrooms. Email her rebecca.cadenhead@mlk50.com.
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