U.S. Justice Department hears more complaints for probe into Kentucky juvenile detention centers

John Cheves, Lexington Herald-Leader on Dec 18, 2024

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LEXINGTON, Ky. — A small group of families, lawyers and others met Tuesday evening in Lexington to share their complaints about abuses in Kentucky’s state-run juvenile detention centers with a team visiting from the U.S. Department of Justice.

The meeting came after the Justice Department announced in May that it’s conducting a civil rights investigation into how youths are treated in the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice’s eight detention centers.

Depending on what the Justice Department finds, it could enter a consent decree with the state of Kentucky mandating reforms at the detention centers, much as it did just a few days ago with the scandal-tainted Louisville Metro Police Department.

The probe came in response to several years of reporting by the Lexington Herald-Leader into chronic abuse and neglect in the detention centers; subsequent state legislative oversight hearings and a critical audit by state Auditor Allison Ball’s office; and multiple lawsuits alleging mistreatment filed by youths and former state employees.

The Justice Department officials said at a public forum on Tuesday that the state of Kentucky has cooperated by providing access to documents and facilities for inspections and interviews. However, they said, they don’t know when their work will conclude.

Republican President Donald Trump and a new attorney general take office in one month, so senior leaders at the Justice Department who approved the investigation soon will be replaced by Trump appointees.

“These investigations can take time. We recognize that can be frustrating,” Robyn Bitner, an attorney with the Justice Department told the audience at the Fayette County Board of Education offices. “If you have a loved one who is being harmed in one of these facilities today, you want it resolved today.”

Federal investigators are examining whether the detention centers use excessive force and punitive isolation; if youths are adequately protected from violence and sexual abuse; and whether the state provides sufficient mental health care, education and services for children in custody who have disabilities.

A state agency — Kentucky Protection and Advocacy — also is touring the juvenile detention centers to inspect living conditions and ask youths how they are being treated. Representatives of that state agency, who attended the Justice Department forum, said it’s not been determined whether their findings will be published.

A spokeswoman for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice did not immediately respond Wednesday to a request for comment on Tuesday’s forum.

Among the concerns raised by members of the forum audience:

▪ The Department of Juvenile Justice continues to misuse pepper spray and isolation, multiple people said. In some instances, pepper spray is used as a first step to redirect youths’ behavior, not as a last resort to stop violence, and youths sometimes are locked alone in their cell for most of the day because of a lack of staffing, not because they presently pose a threat.

The Herald-Leader’s reporting previously has confirmed both of those issues.

Gov. Andy Beshear authorized the use of pepper spray in the detention centers last year as a defensive measure when youths were acting violently against people or property.

In 2023, Bitner told the audience, the Justice Department filed a brief in Louisiana supporting a challenge to that state’s use of prolonged isolation on youths held in detention, because of the harm that isolation can inflict on the youths’ mental health.

▪ Parents say that teen girls held at the Boyd Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Ashland don’t have adequate access to feminine hygiene products, and they are forced to share a communal supply of period-stained underwear and bras that aren’t fully laundered, said Emily Swintosky, an investigator with the Kentucky Department of Public Advocacy.

▪ Some white employees at the Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Columbia were known to taunt Black teens brought to the facility from Louisville, causing serious tension, although that started to become less common earlier this year, said Stacy Coontz, a senior staff attorney with Kentucky Protection and Advocacy.

The Adair facility has seen some of the worst violence in the state’s juvenile justice system, including a riot in November 2022 during which a teen girl in custody was sexually assaulted by teen boys.

▪ Several people said some detention centers rely on outdated educational “packets” that are distributed to youths to work on privately in their cells instead of giving them instructional time in classrooms in the facilities, under the guidance of teachers. At least one set of packets is so old that it refers to the European nation of Yugoslavia — which broke apart more than 30 years ago — as if it still exists, one person said.