This article was produced by WPLN/Nashville Public Radio, a 2023 Propublica Local Reporting Network partner. Sign up for Dispatch to get stories in your inbox every week.
Richard L. Bean, the longtime manager of the East Tennessee Juvenile Detention Center, who is named, suddenly announced on Friday that he will be resigning. His decision to retire came the day after Knox County Mayor said he had lost confidence in Bean’s leadership.
Bean, 84, has been an inspector at a juvenile detention center since 1972. A 2023 survey from WPLN and Propublica found that the facility used solitary confinement more than other detention centers in the state. Sometimes the kids were locked up alone for hours at a time. Such confinement was also used as a punishment in violation of state law.
At the time, Bean defended the practices at the facility, saying he had more punitive capabilities and hoped that those who had retreated didn’t understand what was needed.
After the story ran, the detention center’s management board head told local television station WBIR that he thought the Bean Center was “the best facility in Tennessee.”
An updated scrutiny at the detention center began last week when Bean fired two employees, including the facility’s sole nurse. The nurse’s termination was first reported by Knox News, with the mayor describing her dismissal as “retaliation.”
On Wednesday, Knox County Mayor Glenn Jacobs and Juvenile Court Judge Tim Irwin wrote to the Beans demanding that both employees be resurrected. Irwin is a non-voting member of the Centre’s Board of Trustees, but chooses one of three voting members.
“These terminations could lead to lawsuits against you and the county,” the letter reads, “can cost taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars.”
The next day, Jacobs wrote to the governor asking for detailed questions about immediate state intervention and facility medication, errors in medication reports, and “even medications going to the wrong detainee.”
In a public video statement, Jacobs said he was “not confident that these issues will address the Centre’s current leadership or the Management Committee overseeing the Bean Juvenile Detention Center.” He called on the Knox County Sheriff’s Office to take over the center’s operations, but said there was limited ability to intervene.
By Friday, Bean announced that he would be resigning from his position as director two months after acquiring the facility as a “shipyard,” according to a press release. He did not respond to requests for comment, but in a press release he said his final day will be August 1st.
Tennessee lawmakers did not pass the surveillance bill despite protests against quarantine at the Juvenile Detention Center.
During the investigation of WPLN and Propublica’s Bean Center, documents revealed that state officials repeatedly placed the Bean Center in their corrective action plans, documenting improper use of quarantine, but continued to approve the centre’s license to allow the facility to operate without changing its path.
“What we’re doing is treating everyone like they’re here for murder,” Bean told WPLN during a 2023 visit to the facility. “If you do that, there’s no problem.” Most children at Bean Center are waiting for court dates after being charged with a crime instead, not for murder.
When asked if he was worried he would get into trouble the way he runs the facility, Bean said, “If I’m in trouble for that, I believe I can trouble me and talk to someone who’s going to get out of it.”
