Walking the Line in Nashville
Though they don’t realise it – and probably wouldn’t appreciate it if they did – the 550 youngsters who pass through Davidson County Juvenile Detention Centre in Nashville, Tennessee, each month are enjoying the all-round protection and care of G4S.
Three services, each with distinct responsibilities agreed under separate contracts, work together to provide the physical security of the 86-bed complex and integrated Juvenile Court, management of the detention centre and the electronic monitoring of selected youngsters.
G4S Electronic Monitoring Services was contracted to handle the tagging of up to 30 juveniles who are under the supervision of probation officers as directed by Davidson County Juvenile Court.
On 1 July this year, G4S Wackenhut began providing security for the Juvenile Court. It has responsibilities for controlling the access of visitors, all of whom must enter a walk-through metal detector, be searched and submit their bags to X-ray examination. Their security role extends beyond the court to the parking lot.
Each month, some 280 juveniles are detained at the centre, which opened across the road from the Tennessee Titans’ Football Stadium, in 1994. It serves both male and female pre-adjudicated and adjudicated detainees awaiting trial or transfer to another facility, and G4S Youth Services is currently committed to housing 48 detainees.
On arrival, juveniles are identified as either detainable (having committed a felony offence) or non-detainable (status or misdemeanour offences) and searched for contraband before being placed in a holding area.
Calls are made to the legal guardians of the non-detainable youngsters, who are informed that they have been arrested and asked to collect them.
Those identified as being detainable are booked, given the opportunity to make two phone calls, photographed, fingerprinted, given a shower and provided with underwear, socks and an orange jumpsuit and shoes to wear.
They are then assigned to an area known as Charlie Pod, for their first 24 hours in detention, during which they are seen by members of the centre’s team: nurse, case manager, teacher’s aid and facility chaplain. After that, they transfer to one of three other living areas.
On average, a juvenile will stay in the centre for six days during which he or she will have access to medical and dental care as well as the facilities of its own school.
The role of G4S Electronic Monitoring Services is to place the devices on certain juveniles, as directed by the Juvenile Court’s referees and then a G4S-designated staff member goes to the youngsters’ homes to install other equipment that will alert the probation officers to any failure to comply with the limitations set by the court on their movements. This allows the offender to avoid incarceration at the centre.
Watching over the facility are the G4S Wackenhut officers whose main duties at the Davidson County Juvenile Court are search and patrol.
Between them, these three arms of G4S are not only ensuring a safe environment for justice to be done but also helping Nashville’s wayward young people to learn from their mistakes and get back on the straight and narrow, rather than pursue a life of crime or anti-social behaviour.
In other words, as Nashville’s very own Johnny Cash put it, they learn to "Walk the Line".
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Walking the Line, in Nashville
