Community members have raised concerns that an ordinance meant to limit solitary confinement inside the county’s juvenile detention center violates state law. The legislation’s wording might have allowed children to be held in solitary confinement for 72 hours and to be isolated as punishment for damaging property, they said.
The ordinance, which was expected to pass its third reading during Wednesday’s county commission meeting, was instead deferred and sent back to committee.
The legislation was written after an MLK50: Justice Through Journalism investigation found that youth incarcerated in the center between 2023 and 2025 were regularly held in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day or more. Shelby County Mayor Lee Harris’ office, which has run the facility since October, says it has ended solitary confinement inside the center. Jerri Green, Harris’ former policy advisor, told MLK50 that the ordinance was intended to ensure future mayoral administrations would not hold children in solitary confinement.
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A 2021 state law already limits the use of solitary confinement on children. Under state rules, children cannot be secluded for more than two hours at a time, and for no more than six hours in an entire day. Children also cannot be secluded as punishment or as a response to staffing shortages.
The ordinance, which was written by Harris’ office and sponsored by commissioners Erika Sugarmon, Henri Brooks, and Charlie Caswell, reduces the time children can be kept in solitary confinement from two hours at a time to one hour, unless “appropriate hearings” have been held.
Still, the ordinance does not specify what “appropriate hearings” would consist of. It also states that children cannot be held in solitary confinement longer than “seventy-two (72) hours, within a fourteen (14) day period.”
Taken together, the ordinance’s language may have permitted children to be kept in solitary confinement for three continuous days, said Zoe Jamail, policy and advocacy director for Raphah Institute. That’s “more seclusion than what is allowed under state law,” she said.
Instead of being held in solitary confinement continuously, children could also be isolated for 72 separate hour-long stretches over a short period of time under the ordinance, Jamail added.
The ordinance differed from state law in several other ways, Jamail pointed out.
The ordinance states that seclusion can be used “to prevent damage to property,” even though state law specifies that seclusion cannot be used as punishment.
State law limits the use of isolation to three circumstances: disease management, voluntary time-outs, and scheduled time for rest. By contrast, the ordinance says that isolation can also be used for “standard security protocol.” That security protocol is left undefined.
While state law says that seclusion, a synonym for solitary confinement, is the “involuntary segregation of a child,” the ordinance states that this involuntary segregation must be “intentional” to qualify as seclusion.
Some community members have also pointed out that the county has no way to enforce the ordinance because independent oversight of the facility doesn’t exist.
Harris requested the deferral in response to community criticisms of the ordinance, the mayor’s office confirmed. It will be held for at least two weeks.
In the meantime, the mayor and commissioners plan to hold a meeting to receive more feedback on the ordinance. They did not say whether the meeting would be open to the public.
“The administration wants to have an opportunity to talk to individuals about their interpretation of the law,” said Commissioner Henri Brooks. “It’s a good thing that what they want will be brought to the table.”
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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