How the Head of an Embattled Tennessee Youth Detention Center Held on to Power for Decades

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Criminal Justice
How the Head of an Embattled Tennessee Youth Detention Center Held on to Power for Decades

Richard L. Bean remained in his perch as the superintendent of the juvenile detention center that bears his name despite scandals, investigations and the use of seclusion to punish children.


Richard L. Bean abruptly announced last week his departure as superintendent of the juvenile detention facility that bears his name. Credit: William DeShazer for ProPublica

by Paige Pfleger, WPLN/Nashville Public Radio, and Mariam Elba, ProPublica
June 7, 2025, 5 a.m. EDT

Co-published with WPLN/Nashville Public Radio

This article was produced for ProPublica’s Local Reporting Network in partnership with WPLN/Nashville Public Radio, a 2023-2024 LRN partner. Sign up for Dispatches to get our stories in your inbox every week.

For half a century, through scandals, investigations, failed state inspections and even the illegal use of seclusion to punish children, Richard L. Bean remained in his perch of power as the superintendent of the juvenile detention center that bears his name.

Throughout nearly all of his tenure, there was only one body that could remove him from his post: a board of trustees unlike any other in the state. New reporting by WPLN News and ProPublica shows that for decades the voting members of that board were close friends and allies of Bean’s.

Even for Knoxville, Tennessee, a city known for its old-school politics, the relationship Bean has had with board members past and present stands out. His former secretary, his personal lawyer, the judge for whom he served as a campaign treasurer and a pallbearer of his wife’s casket all sat on the board over time as voting members.

“He’s just been allowed to go unchecked,” said Democratic state Rep. Sam McKenzie of Knoxville, a critic of Bean’s. “It was just a bad situation compounded by a rubber-stamp board that really was trying to protect him and not protect our children.”

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