Tennessee Prison Is Under Federal Investigation After Reports of Abuse

The Justice Department said on Tuesday that it was investigating conditions at a troubled correctional facility outside Nashville over reports that understaffing and high turnover of employees have contributed to the physical and sexual abuse of prisoners.

Kristen Clarke, the assistant attorney general, suggested that a lack of oversight from the state and mismanagement by CoreCivic, the private company that runs the prison, could have contributed to the dangerous environment at Trousdale Turner Correctional Center, the largest correctional facility in Tennessee.

“This investigation should send a clear message,” she said during a news conference. “When states choose to have private companies run their prisons, they remain liable for the conditions inside those facilities. Private prisons are not above the law.”

The inquiry is part of a broader effort by Ms. Clarke’s civil rights division to scrutinize prisons and jails across the country, including in Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. At Trousdale Turner, which falls under the purview of the Tennessee Department of Correction, accounts of stabbings, killings and abuse are rampant.

Since the complex opened in 2016, it has been plagued by reports of “physical assaults, sexual assaults, murders and unchecked flow of contraband and severe staffing shortages,” said Henry C. Leventis, the U.S. attorney for the Middle District of Tennessee.

The department’s civil rights division is conducting the investigation with prosecutors in Tennessee.