In Rutherford County, Tennessee, kids as young as 7 years old were getting thrown in jail for incredibly minor offenses—stealing a football or pulling someone's hair. Some kids were even jailed for acts that weren't crimes at all, such as failing to stop an after-school fight. Worse still, the kids were frequently put in solitary confinement, even though that's explicitly prohibited for children under Tennessee law.
Not only were these jailings illegal, but pretty much everyone working in the Rutherford County Juvenile Court knew it—including the county's sole juvenile court judge, Donna Scott Davenport.
