TBA Law Blog


Posted by: Kate Prince on Jul 26, 2022

Memphis nonprofit Just City has released a 76-page report on the state of youth justice in Shelby County, the Commercial Appeal reports. The organization commissioned Joshua Perry, former executive director of the Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights, to research and create the report, which tracked changes in the system during and after the six years that the U.S. Department of Justice monitored the Juvenile Court of Memphis and Shelby County. Among the key findings in Perry’s report were a lack of transparency in the county’s juvenile system and a vast racial disparity among youth transferred to adult court. According to the report, from 2012-2021 93.9% of youth transferred in the county were Black, while in 2020 only 60.2% of the under-20 population was Black. Read the report and its recommendations here.