TIPTON COUNTY, Tenn. — Tipton County could soon be home to a new juvenile detention center.

Sheriff Shannon Beasley says it’s a part of the effort to crack down on juvenile crime in the area.

“We all are seeing this same problem with the increase in the juvenile crime and the lack of anywhere to put them,” Tipton County Sheriff Shannon Beasley said.

That’s why Sheriff Beasley wants to build a juvenile detention center right in the 25th judicial district.

“Shelby County is currently the closest one that we have, and it constantly stays full,” Beasley said. “Therefore we have issues when we do have juveniles that we need to put somewhere. We’re constantly trying to get them into Jackson or Dyersburg or, most of the time – probably 95 percent of the time, we have to take them to Murfreesboro, which is our next closest one.”

Sheriff Beasley says his office handles anywhere from 850 to 1200 juvenile cases each year, but have nowhere to put the kids after an arrest is made.

In one instance, he says his staff had to spend the night watching over a juvenile accused of committing armed robbery, simply because no nearby facility could take him.

“A lot of times that we have juveniles that we have to send home back to mom and dad or the guardian or whoever it may be,” Beasley said. “When actually, the crime they’ve committed justifies them going to a detention facility,” Beasley said.

The creation of a new juvenile detention center is still in the very early stage and Sheriff Beasley estimates it would cost anywhere between $3-5 million a year to operate.

But it’s a cost well worth it, he says, to keep the streets safer, and hopefully set the kids on a positive path for rehabilitation.

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