do you remember what year it was that you were you were arrested in jail? I was so young that I don't

even remember what was going on in that time. Yeah, right. And so you were, how old were you? Seven?

Oh my God.

When Brandon was just seven years old, police showed up at his door to arrest him.

Brandon's offense?

Tagging along with his older brothers, who'd wrestled in a vacant duplex and left some holes in the drywall.

Now, police were there to take Brandon and his brothers to the juvenile detention center, jail basically. My mom said that they weren't going to take me in, but they were like,

well, he needs to learn his lesson. Brandon was held in detention overnight and then brought to

the juvenile court for his hearing.

They had me in shackles from our feet to our arms going in the court.

Brandon should have gone home with his mom that day, but when he went before the judge, she sent him back to jail for a week.

Brandon's arrest and detention happened in Rutherford County, Tennessee, and his case wasn't unique there. For over a decade, the county

was arresting and jailing kids for even the most minor offenses. I didn't want to go to school.

I just ran away. I spray painted a to go to school. I just ran away.

I spray painted a penis on a wall.

It happened so often to so many kids in Rutherford County that getting sent to juvenile detention

was almost a right of passage.

In many cases, what it also was was illegal.

This is the story of how that system came to be, how it came to be normalized, accepted,

lauded even. It's also the story of two insiders who actually did see the problem in

Rutherford County.

He would sit out and smoke a cigarette and say,

...