Grantee report on youth justice facilities run by TN businessman triggers state investigation

Thomas Jarvis, now 20, was attacked twice at juvenile justice facilities overseen by Jason Crews, a Tennessee businessman. In both instances, facility leadership failed to report the incidents to the state as required.

Many youth in Tennessee who are in state custody for committing crimes are held in privately run facilities operated by businessman Jason Crews. Despite his role in the state’s juvenile justice system, the public has rarely gotten a glimpse into his facilities – until now. A new investigation from Nashville Public Radio/WPLN and ProPublica, with support from the Fund, found that Crews’s facilities have repeatedly failed to report serious incidents to the state as required. Based on the work of WPLN and ProPublica reporters, the Tennessee Department of Children’s Services has opened an investigation into incidents that the reporters uncovered across Crews’s facilities.