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Last week, Tennessee's governor, Bill Lee, signed onto a Trump administration initiative to expand the number of foster care homes. At the same time, though, the governor is also pushing legislation that would allow some foster care kids to be held in jail-like facilities. WPLN's Paige Pfleger reports the proposal comes as the state is struggling to find placements for children in its care.
PAIGE PFLEGER, BYLINE: Ella Bat-Ami wants people to understand the pressure on foster care kids to be perfect.
ELLA BAT-AMI: We don't get to make mistakes. We don't get to have temper tantrums. We don't get to have bad days. We're not allowed to be children.
PFLEGER: She's a former foster youth and says getting in trouble could cost them their home, their foster family. And under a new proposed bill in Tennessee, the stakes would be even higher. Bad behavior could land foster care kids in detention centers, typically reserved for kids who have committed crimes.
BAT-AMI: Foster children are entitled to a childhood in the same way other children are entitled to a childhood, and it should not be a childhood with the sword of prison dangling over their heads.
PFLEGER: Governor Bill Lee and the state's Department of Children Services drafted this bill. The governor didn't reply to requests for comment, and DCS says it won't comment on pending legislation. But at a recent hearing at the state Capitol, DCS' legislative director, Jim Lehman, explained the need for this law.
JIM LEHMAN: We have an issue where we are receiving children into custody that are dependent and neglected. The court has ruled them dependent and neglected.
PFLEGER: Meaning, in the foster care side of the system.
LEHMAN: But their behaviors don't match what you would think of as abused or neglected or an abandoned child.
PFLEGER: He says they can sometimes be violent. This bill would allow foster care kids who exhibit or even just threaten violence or assault to be put into jail-like facilities with locked cells and barbed wire outside. But it's unclear who would have the final say determining which children need heightened supervision. Lawyers and advocates think that DCS is looking to solve a different problem - too many foster kids and not enough homes to place them. A recent state audit found officials are holding some kids in temporary spaces like state office buildings. Last year, one child slept in an office for more than 100 days. It's an issue the department has struggled with for years.
JASMINE MILLER: It's concerning when any youth-serving system is looking to incarceration as a solution for problems.
PFLEGER: Jasmine Miller is an attorney with the Youth Law Center, a national nonprofit. She says Tennessee already relies heavily on institutional settings instead of homes for kids. Data shows that the state puts more kids into group homes or other facilities than many others and has some of the lowest rates of home-based placements.
MILLER: There are other ways to address the issue of long stays in temporary housing. And other states have dealt with this issue.
PFLEGER: Virginia, for example, had similar issues to Tennessee but invested heavily in building out kinship care and foster care home programs instead. If this law passes, it could mean that foster care kids who age out of the system in these facilities are ineligible for benefits like housing or education assistance. And the state could be walking away from almost a million dollars in federal funding that's only available to states that prioritize putting kids in homes, not behind bars. For NPR News, I'm Paige Pfleger in Nashville.
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