Thanks to the Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative, the number of young adults being detained in the Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court has decreased more than 65 percent since 2012. The program, enacted in 2012, aims to drastically reduce the number of juveniles being admitted into juvenile court for misdemeanor offenses; such as: domestic assaults and special emphasis on felonies.

According to Chief Administrative Officer of Memphis and Shelby County Juvenile Court Larry Scroggs, “what we try to do is not detain those juveniles unless there’s some other related charge. Usually, it just takes a cooling off period, trying to get everybody calmed down. For those cases, it’s appropriate that we are able to house them over night until things are pretty much under control.”

The Juvenile Detention Alternative Initiative uses an assessment tool strategy in order to determine whether or not a teen should be admitted into juvenile court or released to their parents or appropriate supervision. The assessment analyzes the offender’s prior offense history and prior failures to appear before court. Each assessment is assigned a number that factors into the end score. For example, if a juvenile has a score of less than 10, then they are free to go. However, if the score is 19 or above then they have no choice but to be detained.

The program seems to be working, considering that in 2011, before the Initiative was enacted, 5,249 juveniles were detained. A year later, post the implementation of the program, only 3,949 were admitted to juvenile detention. At the rate the program is going, residents can look forward to rarely seeing juveniles packing up and moving anywhere.