Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, called on the Kentucky legislature to put more funding into improving treatment and conditions for Kentucky kids being held in detention. (LRC photo)

Sen. Danny Carroll slammed the Kentucky legislature on Friday for not funding his proposal to spend $22 million on a special mental health juvenile detention facility.?

The West Kentucky Republican filed Senate Bill 242 during the 2024 session, which would have also created a process to test and treat minors with serious mental health issues in the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ). The bill passed the Senate and died in the House.?

“By that bill dying in the house, we have left DJJ hanging,” Carroll said during a meeting of the Juvenile Justice Oversight Council. “We have directed them to do certain things, and we didn’t give them the money to do it.”??

Kentucky Republican pitches $165 million to improve care, safety of juveniles in state detention

He called the bill’s death “one of the most disappointing times in my entire career in this legislature.”

“We as a legislature, we have pointed fingers at DJJ. We have pointed fingers at the governor. And now, we have some culpability in this problem because we had the opportunity to finish this out. We had the opportunity to establish a mental health detention center to treat the most severe kids that are detained and we didn’t do it. We let the bill die. We have a crisis in this commonwealth that everybody agreed was a crisis, until it came time to pay for it, and then all of a sudden, it wasn’t a crisis.”??

All eight of Kentucky’s youth detention centers are under federal investigation for possible abuses. Meanwhile, advocates worry about a new state law requiring more kids charged with violent offenses to be held in Kentucky’s troubled juvenile jails.??

Another new state law, passed in 2024, allows more minors to be tried as adults, which could also increase the number of juveniles in detention.?

“With (the Department of Justice) being in town, we’re going to probably … end up under another consent decree in the commonwealth,” Carroll said. “And my colleagues in the legislature, it’s on us.”?

Carroll’s bill allocated $90 million for building two all-female regional detention facilities as well. Female juvenile inmates are currently being transferred to Boyd County.?

“Maybe this next session, we finalize how the regional centers are going to be set up, and then we also need to, once again, approach the mental health detention center that we had planned,” he said.?

Kentucky recently finished the fiscal year with a $2 billion General Fund surplus plumping up the Budget Reserve Trust Fund to $5 billion. Both statutory triggers were met for reducing the state income tax rate by another half percentage point in 2025 to 3.5%, which would be the third income tax reduction since 2022. Reducing the income tax is a top priority for the Republicans who control the legislature.

Republican lawmakers in recent years have repeatedly blamed Gov. Andy Beshear for violence and understaffing in juvenile detention facilities and criticized the administration for mismanagement. Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg,in May said the federal investigation into DJJ should be a “crucial wake-up call for the Beshear administration.”

Beshear criticized the legislature for not funding Carroll’s mental health facility, among other things.?

In January, a report from Republican Auditor Allison Ball found “??disorganization across facilities” and a “lack of leadership from the Beshear Administration” within DJJ. She also criticized the Beshear administration for “the unacceptably poor treatment of Kentucky youth.”

Carroll called for more unity in approaching solutions to the crises within DJJ.?

“There’s been a lot of finger pointing back and forth with this and folks, it’s time for that to stop. We’ve got kids with mental health issues that are sitting in jail cells today and will be there a longer period of time because this legislature failed to act, and that’s unacceptable,” he said. “We cannot point fingers. We cannot start blaming and then just let it die during the session. We’re no better than who we’re pointing fingers at if we do that. And that’s what happened last session.”?

“I’m going to catch heck for this, but at this point, I really don’t care,” Carroll added. “We have let our kids down, no question about it, and we’ve got to fix this, and we’ve got to fix it soon.”?

Staffing issues improving?

During the same meeting Friday, DJJ staff said the staffing issues that have plagued the department are on the mend. Still, there remain 100 funded but vacant positions, according to Myrissa Ritter, a human resource branch manager in the Justice and Public Safety Office.?

From July 2023 to July 2024, DJJ detention staff increased from 344 to 448, Ritter told lawmakers. Security staff increased 274 to 329, making for the “most significant growth,” she said.?

Mental health employees such as social workers, clinicians and psychologists increased from 217 to 241 over the past year as well. Youth workers and administrative staff numbers also improved, from 581 to 615 in the same time frame.?

Ritter credited Senate Bill 162, a law passed by the legislature in 2023 that allocated millions toward improving salaries for DJJ employees. With that money, Ritter said, DJJ can now start correctional employees out at $50,000 a year instead of the previous $30,000.?

“While we have made significant progress in staffing,” she said, “we will continue to seek ways to ensure that the department remains adequately staffed.”?

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, who co-chairs the council, asked about the current conditions of facilities. DJJ Commissioner Randy White, who serves on the council, said that “by and large, the infrastructures are okay right now.”?

One facility has a stuck thermostat that’s being repaired, he said, and there are “some drain lines” in need of repair.?

“We are prepared for heat, but one never knows,” he said, “because repair needs evolve.”?

Former Gov. Matt Bevin, shown at a campaign rally for then U.S. President Donald Trump on Nov. 4, 2019 in Lexington, Kentucky. (Photo by Bryan Woolston/Getty Images)

The adopted son of former Kentucky Gov. Matt Bevin is back in the United States — after he was removed earlier this year from an allegedly abusive Jamaican youth facility and left in care of that country’s child welfare system.

The boy, 17, is in a placement worked out with help of Jamaican children’s authorities after his adoptive parents, Matt and Glenna Bevin, did not immediately respond to inquiries about his situation, said advocates working behalf of him and seven other boys removed from the facility in February.

“He is safe,” said Rebecca Growne, a representative of a child advocacy foundation created by hotel heiress Paris Hilton, who has used her celebrity to shed light on conditions in so-called “troubled teen” facilities.

“He is in an appropriate placement.”

The Bevins, Growne said, are not involved in the matter.

Hilton’s foundation, 11:11 Media Impact, is a non-profit organization which advocates on behalf of children in allegedly abusive residential settings.

Hilton herself traveled to Jamaica in April to meet the boys and offer her organization’s support, a visit she mentioned in June testimony before Congress over her concerns about such residential programs.

Hilton said she, as a teenager, was placed involuntarily in several such facilities she said were highly abusive.

The Bevins did not respond to repeated queries about their son as officials and advocates sought to find a custodian for him, according to advocates with the Hilton foundation. As a result, he was placed in custody of the Jamaican child welfare system.

“They were not communicating with us,” said Chelsea Maldonado, also with the Paris Hilton foundation, who went to Jamaica to assist in the case. “Everyone has tried. No one has had success.”

Neither Matt Bevin, who served as Kentucky governor from 2015 through 2019, nor his lawyer responded to a request for comment.

Glenna Bevin, who is seeking a divorce from her husband, did not respond to a request for comment through her lawyer.

Matt Bevin, a conservative Christian, ran a campaign based in part on improving adoption services in Kentucky and reducing the number of children in foster care. In a 2017 interview on KET he called his desire to reform the system “the driving reason I made the decision to run.”

The Bevins are the parents of five biological children and four children they adopted from Ethiopia in 2012, including the youth who was sent to the Atlantis Leadership Academy in Jamaica last year.

Matt Bevin often cited the adoption in his political campaign and after he was elected in calling on members of Kentucky’s faith community to provide adoptive homes for children in need.

‘The perfect location for healing’

On its website, the Atlantis Leadership Academy describes itself as a “the perfect location for healing,” and an ideal place for youths who have cycled though other treatment programs without success.

But on Feb. 8, officials with the Jamaican Child Protection and Family Services Agency found otherwise when they conducted an unannounced welfare check on the eight teenage boys, ages 14-18, all U.S. citizens, according to a press release from the agency.

“During this visit, signs of abuse and neglect were observed, leading to the immediate removal of the teens from the facility for their safety,” it said.

The U.S. Embassy, in a statement, said it takes the welfare of U.S. children abroad “very seriously” and works closely with Jamaican child protection officials in such matters.

The Jamaican children’s agency did not elaborate on the abuse it observed at the academy but a lengthy story July 13 in the Sunday Times of London said the teens removed from the academy described beatings, violent treatment, isolation, lack of food, filthy, unsanitary conditions and cruel punishments such as being forced to lie face down on the floor for hours.

“I’d rather die than go back,” one boy said, according to the Sunday Times.

The case was also referred to criminal authorities which resulted in charges of assault and child cruelty against five former staffers.

‘He was just so dejected’

The removal of the teens from the academy set off a flurry of activity to identify the boys and find their families.

Dawn J. Post, a New York lawyer who specializes in family law and failed adoptions, was among lawyers who traveled to Jamaica to volunteer their help with the boys’ cases.

The U.S. embassy and child welfare officials were able to confirm the identity of the youths and begin searching for relatives who might take custody of those under 18, she said. Representatives of Hilton’s foundation joined the effort.

The 18-year-old, no longer in the family court’s jurisdiction, was returned to the United States in coordination with the U.S. Embassy and the youth’s family, the children’s agency press release said.

Custody arrangements were made for four more.

Ultimately, three boys ended up in the custody of Jamaica child welfare when no relatives stepped forward, Post said.

Post said she was able to meet and speak with the boys, who signed agreements to accept her voluntary legal services — including the Bevins’ son.

“This young man was the one I was most worried about,” she said. “He seemed the most dejected, with very little belief that anyone was coming for him or even knew he was missing. He was just so dejected and depressed after everything he had gone through.”

Post said she was able to make telephone contact with Glenna Bevin once, who said she needed to consult with her husband before discussing her son’s care. Post said Glenna Bevin cut off contact after that. The Bevins’ son returned to the U.S. in May.

One of the eight boys remains in Jamaica as officials and advocates try to work out arrangements for his return to the United States, Growne said.

The Atlantis Leadership Academy was closed in March by officials, according to a statement from the U.S. Embassy. It was not licensed as a school and had moved locations several times, finally to a small, two-bedroom cottage, the Sunday Times story said.

Most youths got classes online, intermittently, Maldonado said.

Families paid $8,000 to $10,000 a month in fees, she said.

‘Terrifying, clickbait headlines’

Atlantis Leadership Academy has not responded to requests for comment through its website and a toll-free line it lists is not accepting calls.

The Sunday Times story said its founder and director, an American named Randall Cook, did not appear at court hearings over the facility and is believed to have returned to the United States.

Meanwhile, the academy, though closed, appears to be pushing back on some of the allegations.

On its website, under the heading Media and FAQ, it accuses some outlets of “terrifying clickbait headlines” with “horrific, pre-determined narrative attacks.”

Its comments do not directly address the allegations but rather, question the media outlets that reported them.

“Do you feel as though what you receive from the media is a narrative or genuine, honest reporting?” it asks. “It is no surprise that as a direct result of lazy reporting, half-truths and craving for sensationalism above dignity and the public common good, most media houses have continued losing massive amounts of trust among their consumers.”

It also defends parents who place their children in facilities that purport to help difficult youths, saying they in most cases are well-meaning individuals, desperate for help.

“Parents are in a place of devastation,” the academy website said. “…There is virtually no compassion for a parent that is experiencing this situational trauma in their home and lives.”

Going forward, Growne said Hilton and the foundation remain focused on advocacy meant to bring awareness of the proliferation of such facilities, both in the United States and abroad. Their foundation currently is looking into conditions at another facility in Jamaica that houses more than 150 youths.

It also is looking for stronger federal and state laws regulating such facilities and more resources to help children in the community, rather than institutions.

Children’s residential facilities, including those promising help for troubled teens, have become a multibillion-dollar industry, often with little oversight, Growne said.

Marketing often is aimed at parents of adopted children and may paint a glowing picture of substandard facilities that some parents send children to sight unseen, Growne said. Some parents use “transport teams,” hired workers, to collect their children and take them to a facility, she said.

“I think it needs to be well-known that these facilities are out there,” she said. “The marketing does not live up to the reality.”

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(Getty Images)

Kentucky is one of five additional states that will soon provide Medicaid health coverage for people nearing release from prison or juvenile detention, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.?

“We’ve been eagerly anticipating CMS’s approval of Kentucky’s healthy re-entry demonstration for years now,” said Emily Beauregard, executive director of Kentucky Voices for Health, a coalition of health advocacy groups.

The program started as a demonstration focused on treatment for substance-use disorder during incarceration and “has expanded to focus on putting in place all of the physical and behavioral health treatment, care coordination, and wrap-around supports justice-involved Kentuckians need to successfully return to their communities and thrive,” Beauregard said in an email.?

This demonstration program is operated under a partial waiver of the Medicaid program’s inmate-exclusion policy. Without the waiver, Medicaid won’t pay inmates’ care unless they are admitted to a hospital.

“Providing avenues for greater health outcomes is always the right thing to do, and this program does just that,” state Cabinet for Health and Family Services spokesperson Brice Mitchell said in an email.

Before the state can start the coverage, it must submit an implementation plan to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mitchell said: “Upon receiving implementation approval from CMS, Kentucky will cover a select set of pre-release health-care services through Medicaid and the Kentucky Children’s Health Insurance Program for up to 60 days before an individual’s expected date of release.”

Kentucky didn’t take full advantage of the waiver, which allows states to provide coverage up to 90 days before the expected release date. Eligibility is based on income; the limit is 138 percent of the federal poverty level.

Mitchell added, “The individual must be eligible for Medicaid or KCHIP to qualify and must be a state inmate housed in one of Kentucky’s 14 prisons or a post-adjudicated juvenile in the custody of the Department for Juvenile Justice.”

Mitchell provided data from the state Department of Corrections, which said “There are 19,220 individuals serving felony convictions in state prisons or jails, as well as an additional 49,700 on active supervision with the Division of Probation and Parole. At least 95% of the state inmate population will be released from incarceration at some point.”?

Kentucky’s waiver doesn’t allow inmates in jails to participate, because Kentucky jails are operated by counties, not the state. Beauregard said, “We’ve advocated for allowing jails to opt in, if they are willing to meet requirements and participate fully.” She said the state Department for Medicaid Services “has said they will consider [jails] as a future phase of this project.”

Coverage will be available not only to adult prisoners, but incarcerated youth, under the Children’s Health Insurance Program, called KCHIP in Kentucky. Beauregard praised the inclusion of youth in the coverage, which was not part of the original demonstration program for substance-use-disorder treatment and not part of the original application for its expansion.?

“Another important expansion from the original waiver is that youth who are in detention facilities will also get these services and wrap-around supports, which has the potential to reduce recidivism,” Beauregard said.?

A July 2 news release from HHS noted that incarcerated people often report higher levels of substance-use disorders, chronic health conditions and other health concerns, and that people transitioning out of jail or prison can experience delays in obtaining access to Medicaid or CHIP.?

HHS Secretary Xavier Becerra said in the release, “For people involved in the justice system, ensuring a successful transition back into the community includes having the health-care supports and services they need.”

Kentucky is the first Southern state in the program. The other newly approved states are Illinois, Oregon, Utah and Vermont. California, Massachusetts, Montana and Washington had already been approved.

This article is republished from Kentucky Health News, ?an independent news service of the Institute for Rural Journalism in the School of Journalism and Media at the University of Kentucky, with support from the Foundation for a Healthy Kentucky.

The Adair Youth Detention Center, site of a riot in late 2022, is one of the Kentucky facilities under investigation by the U.S. Justice Department. (Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet)

The mood was celebratory as Kentucky and federal officials crowded into the Capitol Rotunda on a cold January day in 2001 to announce the end of five years of federal oversight of the state’s problem-ridden juvenile justice system.

“We’re never going to slide back to where we were in 1995,” said then-Juvenile Justice Commissioner Ralph Kelly. “We know we’re on the road to victory.”

But slide back Kentucky has — despite sweeping reforms enacted under a 1995 federal consent decree that advocates say, by the early 2000s, made it a national model for rehabilitating young offenders.

Now, Kentucky faces the threat of renewed federal oversight after the U.S. Justice Department announced May 15 it is opening an investigation into whether conditions at eight juvenile detention centers and one residential center for offenders violate civil rights of youths.

In a letter to Gov. Andy Beshear, the department said it is investigating possible excessive use of chemical force (pepper spray) and physical force by staff, failure to protect youths from violence and sexual abuse, overuse of isolation and lack of mental health and educational services

And longtime observers of the system who have watched the downward slide — including Earl Dunlap, a juvenile justice expert appointed by the federal authorities? to monitor Kentucky’s compliance with the 1995 consent decree — say it didn’t have to happen.

“Disgusting and sad,” is how Dunlap described it. “You had people in leadership in Kentucky who should not have allowed this to happen. You went from nothing to something and then right back to nothing.”

Dunlap, who is semi-retired and lives in Illinois, said he became so concerned about reports of problems in juvenile justice that in March 2023, he wrote to Beshear warning him of the risk of failing to fully address problems.

While congratulating Beshear on efforts to reform juvenile justice, Dunlap added in his letter he feared such efforts might fall short of federal standards and result in future litigation.

Dunlap said he offered to provide the administration with assistance for reform efforts but did not get a reply.

Beasher’s office did not immediately respond to a request for comment about Dunlap’s letter.

But Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said his organization has found the Beshear administration uninterested in outside input when it comes to juvenile justice, calling it a “closed shop.”

“Not only has there not been any outreach, there has not been a response to folks trying to reach out,” he said.

Problems build for years

Brooks said while problems have been building over the years in juvenile justice, Beshear, now in his second term, and lawmakers ultimately bear responsibility.

“This is clearly on the Beshear administration and the General Assembly,” he said. “Clearly the governor and the General Assembly abrogated their responsibility.”

Beshear defended his administration’s efforts to upgrade juvenile justice in a statement released Tuesday by Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Cabinet for Justice and Public Safety.

“In response to violent outbreaks and to enhance security for staff and youth, the Beshear-Coleman administration developed an aggressive plan starting in December 2022 to implement sweeping improvements to Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, for the first time since its creation nearly 25 years ago,” it said.

In December, Beshear announced the state would open a detention center for females only in Campbell County following the sexual assault of a female detainee in Adair County.

Beshear also has sought to address acute staffing shortages by increasing starting pay for youth workers to $39,127 a year and the General Assembly approved about $138 million a year each year in additional juvenile justice funds for fiscal years 2023 and 2024.

It also has worked to upgrade medical and mental health services, the statement said.

Efforts also are underway to reopen the Jefferson County Youth Detention Center, which Louisville Metro Council decided to stop funding in 2019 after operating it for nearly 40 years. That forced the state to take on housing juvenile detainees, some in distant counties at understaffed facilities, far away from families and requiring long drives back and forth for court appearances.

Dunlap calls that a huge blunder.

“The ramifications were that the largest volume of kids in the state had to be transported elsewhere,” he said. “It was just plain ridiculous.”

‘Take the initiative’

The legislature, under pressure from the 1995 consent decree, in 1996 created the Department of Juvenile Justice to oversee youths charged with and convicted of offenses, which previously had fallen under the Cabinet of Health and Family Services.

While the previous federal investigation focused on residential centers, where youths found guilty of offenses were sent for treatment, the state also elected to create a system of new regional detention centers to hold children with pending charges. Previously, in many counties, children were held in adult jails, generally in separate units.

Masten Childers II, health cabinet secretary for former Gov. Brereton Jones, said the state went beyond requirements of the consent decree.

Childers, who? oversaw negotiation of the 1995 consent decree with federal authorities, said he was “surprised and disappointed” to learn Kentucky once again is subject to a civil rights investigation of its juvenile facilities.

“If our consent decree had been followed, we would not be talking about this,” he said.

Still, he thinks the Beshear administration can use the investigation to improve the system should it result in federal enforcement.

“Kentucky needs to take the initiative,” he said. “This is not the time to be defensive.”

‘No win here’

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill and longtime proponent of juvenile justice reform, said he’s concerned that the state’s system is becoming more like an adult prison model instead of one focused on rehabilitation and treatment of youths, many of whom have experienced significant trauma and have mental health issues.

The current Juvenile Justice Commissioner, Randy White, appointed by Beshear in March, is a 27-year veteran of the state adult prison system.

“The extent to which we make our system for kids more like a corrections facility and less a place for opportunities for kids, the more harm we’re going to do in the long run,” Westerfield said. “The more we approach it as a baby prison, the more damage we’re going to do.”?

Westerfield said he’s saddened that problems with Kentucky’s juvenile justice system have attracted attention of federal authorities but hopes it results in improvements.

“If this is what it takes, then that’s a good thing,” he said.

Meanwhile, he said, he’s concerned that the juvenile justice system is struggling even as Kentucky lawmakers enact tougher laws on juvenile offenders, citing misleading claims that today’s youths are more violent or that juvenile crime is increasing.

“Juvenile crime is not worse. It’s dropping,” he said. “Adult crime is dropping.”

Juvenile crime has been falling steadily and in 2020, was at its lowest level since 2005, according to a U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention report last year.

Still his fellow lawmakers rely on anecdotal events or a headline-grabbing crime as a reason to enact tougher laws, including one that takes effect July 1 to require mandatory, 48-hour detention for youths charged with serious crimes, Westerfield said. That has the potential to send an additional 400 youths a year into state juvenile detention facilities even as those facilities come under investigation by federal authorities.

“There’s no win here except the political victory for the sponsors and for the people who voted for it,” Westerfield said. “They’s going to get to say they’re tough on crime.”

‘Damn pepper spray’

The current federal investigation focuses on the eight detention centers and one residential center, the Adair Youth Development Center, the site of a November 2022 riot, resulting in a serious injury to staff and sexual assault of a female youth. In addition to those facilities the state operates five other youth development centers, eight group homes for juveniles and six nonresidential day-treatment programs.

In recent years, allegations of abuse, solitary confinement, overuse of force and overuse of adult corrections-type measures such as pepper spray have dominated headlines — initially in reporting by John Cheves of the Lexington Herald Leader — and more recently, outlined at legislative hearings including allegations of? sexual misconduct and disproportionate treatment of Black and multiracial youth.?

In January, state Auditor Allison Ball released a report requested by lawmakers detailing a series of serious problems with the system’s detention centers including overuse of force, significant understaffing, lack of clear policies of managing youth behavior and misuse of isolation.

The report, by the consulting firm CGL Management Group, also expressed concern about the Beshear administration’s introduction of pepper spray and tasers into juvenile centers, saying they are largely unnecessary.

“Current nationally recognized best practices do not support the widespread deployment of chemical agents or the use of electroshock devices (such as Tasers) within juvenile detention and instead recommend strategies to reduce or eliminate these uses of force,” it said.

The Justice Cabinet, in a statement, defended the use of pepper spray, also known as oleoresin capsicum, or OC spray.

“Pepper spray is a non-lethal, effective tool for both staff and juveniles, and is issued by adult and juvenile facilities across the country,” it said.

Further, it said, the legislature has mandated that pepper spray and tasers be issued to staff at juvenile justice facilities.

The outside audit warned use of pepper spray is especially risky for children with asthma or other health conditions or those on certain medications.

“As staffing levels improve, further consideration should be given to entirely removing pepper spray,” it said.

Dunlap, the former federal monitor, said he was shocked when Beshear authorized the use of pepper spray in juvenile detention centers last year, calling its use “old school.”

“The first thing I would do is get rid of that damn pepper spray,” he said. “They’re gonna kill someone with it.”

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched an investigation into the conditions at eight of the youth detention centers and one development center in the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.?(Getty Images)

The U.S. Department of Justice has launched a civil rights investigation into the conditions at eight of the youth detention centers and one development center in the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.?

“The investigation will examine whether Kentucky protects children confined in these facilities from harm caused by excessive force by staff, prolonged and punitive isolation and inadequate protection from violence and sexual abuse,” the Justice Department said in a statement. “The investigation will also examine whether Kentucky provides adequate mental health services and required special education and related services to children with disabilities.”?

U.S. Attorney Mike Bennett for the Western District of Kentucky said in a statement that he “stands ready to protect the rights of all children in Kentucky, including those who end up in juvenile detention” and will work to “conduct a fair and thorough investigation of these allegations.”

Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Keith Jackson said in a statement Monday afternoon that “every juvenile placed in the custody of the state deserves to be safe. We have made progress on the security of our juvenile facilities; we have trained our personnel, protected juveniles and staff against violent attacks and taken corrective action against employee misconduct.”?

“We look forward to being able to talk to the Department of Justice, because as of today, no members of our leadership have been interviewed, and we have not had the opportunity to discuss any incident, policy or issue with the Department of Justice,” Jackson said.?

In a video posted to the Justice website Wednesday, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said the investigators will “review whether there are unconstitutional conditions including use of unreasonable physical and chemical force by staff, inappropriate use of isolation, failure to protect children from physical and sexual abuse and adequate mental health care.”

Ahead of the 2023 legislative session,?reports of violence?in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system regularly made headlines, including a riot in Adair County during which?a girl in state custody?was allegedly sexually assaulted and?employees were attacked?at a youth detention center in Warren County. DJJ has also faced persistent?staffing issues, the Lantern has reported.?

This session, West Kentucky Republican Sen. Danny Carroll asked his colleagues to build a $22 million special mental health juvenile detention facility as well as create a process to test and treat such children. His bill also would have delayed a requirement for a 48-hour mandatory detention, which came out of 2023 legislation. (The 48-hour hold for some juveniles charged with violent crimes is set to go into effect this July).

Carroll’s proposal did not make it into the final two-year state budget.

“While the General Assembly has provided some help, it recently failed to fund two needed detention facilities, as well as a specialized residence for juveniles with extensive mental illness,” Gov. Andy Beshear said in a statement reacting to the Justice investigation. “Funding was also denied for additional safety improvements. The Department of Juvenile Justice will cooperate with the Department of Justice while also strongly advocating for the safety of its staff.”??

Sen. David Givens, R-Greensburg, said “the Senate remains committed to addressing these serious issues” in DJJ.

“Our consistent advocacy for policy reforms and budget enhancements aims to rectify the ongoing crisis within the Department of Juvenile Justice,” Givens said in a statement.?“It is disheartening that such measures are necessary, but we hope the impending federal investigation will serve as a crucial wake-up call for the Beshear administration. This is an opportunity to reaffirm commitment to the welfare of Kentucky’s troubled youth and to ensure the safety of the staff in these facilities.”

Second time feds involved?

The investigation is the second time federal justice authorities have examined conditions in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system after allegations of serious abuse and mistreatment of youths.

In 1995, after an extensive review of conditions in the state’s system for housing and treating youths found guilty of crimes, the U.S. Justice Department found the state had violated their civil rights and placed the state under a federal consent decree aimed at reforms.

The investigation followed months of reports of mistreatment of youths and other problems by the Courier Journal and other news outlets.

Violations federal officials cited at the time included abuse and mistreatment of youths housed in centers, poor or no investigations of complaints, overuse of isolation cells, lack of adequate medical and psychiatric treatment and aging, run-down facilities.

The 1995 federal investigation focused mainly on treatment facilities where youths were sent after a judge had determined they had committed offenses, while the investigation announced Wednesday focuses largely on detention facilities where youths are held while charges are pending.

But the resolution of the 1995 investigation led to sweeping changes in both the state’s juvenile treatment and detention systems, hailed at the time as a major advance in reforms.

Under pressure from the consent decree, in 1996, the Kentucky General Assembly created the Department of Juvenile Justice to oversee treatment facilities, pumping millions of dollars into upgrades. Previously, the Cabinet for Health and Family Services had overseen care of youths who committed offenses.

And the state undertook a separate upgrade of the detention system where many youths previously had been held in adult jails in violation of federal guidelines, instead creating a separate system of regional detention centers for youths.

In 2001, then U.S. Attorney General Janet Reno held a press conference in Frankfort to announce her department was lifting the 1995 consent decree, citing the substantial improvement to the system.

Kentucky, at the time, had created “an example for the rest of the nation,” said Reno, who served as attorney general under President Bill Clinton.

But at the time, officials warned Kentucky must work to avoid a return to the problems of the early 1990s through vigilance and adequate resources.

Ava Smithing, director of advocacy for the Young People’s Alliance, testifies before a U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce subpanel on April 17, 2024, on several data privacy bills being considered in Congress. (Screenshot from U.S. House Committee on Energy and Commerce)

If you are having thoughts of suicide, contact 988. For resources regarding eating disorders, visit nationaleatingdisorders.org/get-help/.

WASHINGTON — U.S. House members tasked with addressing what happens to loads of user data collected by big tech companies see a “long overdue” opportunity for a national privacy standard, particularly for children and teens.

Lawmakers on a subpanel of the House Committee on Energy and Commerce met Wednesday to hear from advocates and online safety experts on a series of data privacy bills that are drawing rare bipartisan and bicameral support.

The 10 bills discussed by six witnesses and members of the Subcommittee on Innovation, Data and Commerce would regulate how data is collected and stored, allow users to opt out of algorithms, and ensure safeguards for minors on the internet.

The hearing came on the heels of widespread bipartisan support for a bill that would force the popular video platform TikTok to split from its Chinese parent company ByteDance. The legislation passed the House in March in a 352-65 vote.

“Today we find ourselves at a crossroads,” said Energy and Commerce Committee Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers. “We can either continue down the dangerous path we’re on, letting companies and bad actors continue to collect massive amounts of data unchecked, or we can give people the right? to control their information online.”

Washington state lawmakers unite

The Washington Republican’s discussion draft of the American Privacy Rights Act was a focus of the Wednesday hearing.

The bipartisan, bicameral proposal, introduced alongside Senate Committee on Commerce Chair Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, would shrink the amount of data companies can collect, regulate data brokers, allow users to access their own data and request deletion, and empower the Federal Trade Commission and state attorneys general to enforce the policies.

Placing the burden on consumers to read “notice and consent” privacy agreements “simply does not work,” said Energy and Commerce Committee ranking member Frank Pallone of New Jersey.

“By contrast, data minimization limits the amount of personal information entities collect, process, retain and transfer to only what is necessary to provide the products and services being requested by the consumer,” Pallone said, praising provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act.

Rodgers said the “foundational” legislation would protect minors and establish a national standard to quash a “modern form of digital tyranny where a handful of companies and bad actors are exploiting our personal information, monetizing it and using it to manipulate how we think and act.”

One national standard would preempt “the patchwork of state laws, so when consumers and businesses cross state lines, there are consistent rights, protections and obligations,” GOP Rep. Gus Bilirakis of Florida, the subcommittee’s chair, said during his opening remarks.

Seventeen states have enacted their own privacy laws and regulations with another 18 states actively pursuing various pieces of legislation, creating a “complex landscape of state-specific privacy laws,” testified Katherine Kuehn, chief information security officer-in-residence for the National Technology Security Coalition, a cybersecurity advocacy organization.

‘Insecurity as data’

Among the other proposals the panel discussed was an update to the 1998 Children and Teens’ Online Privacy Act, co-sponsored by Michigan Republican Rep. Tim Walberg and Kathy Castor, a Florida Democrat.

The bill aims to ban targeted advertising to children and teens, prohibit internet companies from collecting the data of 13-to-17-year-olds without consent, and require direct notice if data is being stored or transferred outside of the U.S.

Ava Smithing of Nashville, Tennessee, described for the committee her teen years spent on Instagram and the body image issues and eating disorder that ensued after repeated targeted content.

“The companies’ abilities to track engagements, such as the duration of time I looked at a photo, revealed to them what would keep me engaged — my own insecurity,” she testified.

“They stored my insecurity as data and linked it to all my other accounts across the internet. They used my data to infer what other types of content I might ‘like,’ leading me down a pipeline from bikini advertisements to exercise videos to dieting tips and finally to eating disorder content,” Smithing, director of advocacy for the Young People’s Alliance, said.

‘Big tech has failed’

Bilirakis is a sponsor of the similarly named Kids Online Safety Act, along with fellow Reps. Erin Houchin, an Indiana Republican, Washington Democrat Kim Schrier and Castor.

“We know that big tech has failed, ladies and gentlemen, to prioritize the health and safety of our children online, resulting in a significant increase in mental health conditions, suicide and drug overdose deaths. We’ve heard stories over and over and over again in our respective districts,” Bilirakis said.

Bilirakis’ bill would outline a set of harms to children under 17 and require big tech and video game companies to mitigate those harms. The bill also aims to increase parental protections on platforms and commission a study of age verification options.

A companion bill in the U.S. Senate has been introduced by Connecticut Democrat Richard Blumenthal and Tennessee Republican Marsha Blackburn.

Samir C. Jain, of the Center for Democracy and Technology, told the House panel that some proposals, including the Kids Online Safety Act, “while well-intentioned and pursuing an important goal, do raise some concerns.”

“Legislation that restricts access to content because government officials deem it harmful can harm youth and present significant constitutional issues,” said Jain, vice president of policy for the civil liberties advocacy organization.

“Further, requirements or strong incentives to require age verification systems to identify children often require further data collection from children and adults alike, and thereby can undermine privacy and present their own constitutional issues,” Jain testified.

However, Jain praised provisions in the American Privacy Rights Act that would increase transparency into the algorithms employed by large data companies and “prohibit using data in a way that perpetuates or exacerbates discrimination based on protected characteristics such as race, sex, religion, or disability status — whether a Black person looking for a job, a woman seeking a loan to start a business, or a veteran with a disability trying to find housing.”

During questioning, Bilirakis asked each panelist: “Yes or no, do you think this is the best chance we have to getting something done on comprehensive data privacy?”

All witnesses answered yes.

Meta, which owns Instagram, did not respond to a request for comment.

Kentucky Attorney General Russell Coleman has called on Blair to resign. (Getty Images)

More Kentucky juveniles would be tried as adults under a bill that has now been approved by both chambers of the legislature.?

‘Victims before perpetrators:’ Senate passes bill to try certain juveniles as adults?

The House on Tuesday approved Senate Bill 20 which mandates that juveniles 15 or older would be transferred to circuit court for trial as an adult if they are alleged to have used a firearm while committing a Class A, B or C felony.?

Democratic Rep. Lindsey Burke of Lexington opposed the bill, saying it would rush kids in the “school to prison pipeline” to the “finish line.”

Burke and Rep. Keturah Herron noted that the bill reverses a change the legislature made just three years giving juvenile judges discretion to decide whether to transfer a gun case to adult court.

Rep. Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, who introduced the measure in the House, said SB 20 is aimed at “very violent criminals.” It is sponsored by Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Elizabethtown.

A recovered 2012 Hyundai Elantra is seen in Berkeley, Calif., after being stolen in early October 2023. Thieves have targeted Hyundai and Kia vehicles that were built without engine immobilizers, a common anti-theft technology that has long been standard on other vehicle models. Now, Hyundai said it will set up “mobile clinics” at five U.S. locations to provide anti-theft software upgrades for vehicles now regularly targeted by thieves using a technique popularized on TikTok and other social platforms. (AP Photo/David Hamilton)

Carjackings and car thefts are up significantly compared with the number of incidents before the pandemic, prompting fear and calls for action in many American cities.

Motor vehicle thefts increased by 29% in 2023 compared with the previous year, while carjackings slightly decreased by 5%?in?nearly 40 American cities,?according to the Council on Criminal Justice’s most recent crime trends report. But between 2019 and 2023, both car thefts and carjackings increased dramatically, by 105% and 93%, respectively, according to the report.

Sweeping GOP bill increasing criminal penalties, outlawing ‘street camping’ clears Kentucky House

As with many other crimes, there is limited FBI data on carjackings and motor vehicle thefts because law enforcement agencies differ in how they collect and submit their data. The federal Bureau of Justice Statistics also has not released any updated statistics on carjackings since October 2022, which tracked crimes committed through 2021. That poses a significant challenge for policymakers trying to allocate police resources to the communities that need them most.

?The five cities with the highest year-over-year increases in motor vehicle theft between 2022 and 2023 were Rochester, New York; Baltimore; Buffalo, New York; Charlotte, North Carolina; and Cincinnati. The cities with the highest carjacking rates per 100,000 residents in 2023 were the District of Columbia; Baltimore; Memphis, Tennessee; Chicago; and Denver.

“We certainly don’t want people flying blind making decisions with respect to public safety,” said Alex Piquero, a criminology professor at the University of Miami and the former director of the Bureau of Justice Statistics.

Anecdotal evidence on social media can heavily shape public perceptions of safety and crime, Ernesto Lopez, a research specialist at the Council on Criminal Justice, wrote in an email to Stateline.

Josh Rovner, the director of youth justice at The Sentencing Project, agreed that “the scraps of information that we have about youth involvement is very easy to overstate and misunderstand.”

Carjacking data, especially at the national level, is hard to come by. And despite the greater availability of motor vehicle theft data, its reliability varies across different law enforcement levels, with some local departments failing to submit their data to federal agencies and others not collecting the information at all.

“We need more local law enforcement agencies to produce that data — not just internally for their own community to report out to the community, but also for policy action,” Piquero said.

What the data says

Since reaching its peak in the 1990s, overall crime in the United States has declined. In 2022, the most recent year with available data, there were 23.5 violent crimes for every 1,000 Americans aged 12 and older, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey.

The violent victimization rate increased by 42% in 2022 compared with 2021, but the past three decades have seen an overall decline.

Carjackings and motor vehicle thefts, however, are up compared with before the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. It’s hard to say exactly what’s behind the surge, but some crime experts suggest that the economic turmoil during the pandemic, coupled with the relative ease of stealing cars or parts for financial gain, increased the attractiveness of car-related crime.

Carjackings are less common than auto thefts but more violent. In a carjacking the perpetrator directly confronts the vehicle’s owner, while auto theft typically occurs when a car is unoccupied. Motor vehicle theft includes stealing entire cars or specific parts such as tires, rims or catalytic converters. The difference between the two offenses is whether force is used to steal a car.

In the District of Columbia, the city’s police department recorded 958 carjackings last year but only made 173 arrests, according to the Metropolitan Police Department’s carjacking dashboard. Sixty-two percent of those suspects were under the age of 18.

Juveniles might be overrepresented in D.C.’s arrest numbers because they are easier to apprehend, or because they tend to commit crimes together, said Rovner, of The Sentencing Project.

Nationwide, the number of?adults and juveniles?arrested for motor vehicle theft?has consistently declined since the 1980s, according to data from the federal Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Throughout the 1980s and 1990s, the juvenile arrest rate was about four times higher than adults,?an analysis of federal data by the Council on Criminal Justice found. By 2020, the rates for both adults and juveniles were about the same.

Misconceptions such as an overemphasis on the role juveniles play in carjackings and auto thefts can lead to misguided policies that may not enhance public safety and, in some cases, may exacerbate the situation, according to Josh Weber, deputy director in the corrections and reentry division of the Council of State Governments Justice Center, a think tank focused on breaking the cycle of incarceration.

“[These misconceptions] tend to lead to more reactionary and punitive policies rather than policies that are necessarily grounded in research and data,” said Weber, who also directs the center’s juvenile justice program.

“Research has consistently shown that detaining more kids, incarcerating more kids, pushing more kids into the juvenile justice system is a bad public safety strategy,” Weber added. “It actually increases the likelihood that kids will reoffend.”

Addressing the surge in vehicular crime

The “super predator” mindset of the 1990s, fueled by fears of a generation of remorseless and violent young offenders, significantly shaped criminal justice policies for decades. This crime theory led to harsher penalties, higher juvenile incarceration rates and a focus on punitive measures rather than rehabilitation.

“We are always at risk when people are afraid of crime and instinctually just up penalties. We’ve been here before,” Rovner said. “One of the responses that comes up is the idea that a serious response is about sending kids to adult courts or adult jails or adult prisons, and that is absolutely the worst response when it comes to public safety.”

Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Elizabethtown, sponsored the bill automatically transferring some juvenile cases to adult court. (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A bill making it easier for Kentucky to try certain juveniles as adults passed out of the Senate Wednesday 25-9-1 after a heated debate.?

Under Senate Bill 20, Kentuckians would be transferred to circuit court for trial as an adult if, among other things, they were at least 15 years old at the time of an alleged crime and used a gun while committing a Class A, B or C felony — whether or not the gun was “functional.”?

Speaking on the Senate floor Wednesday, primary sponsor Sen. Matthew Deneen, R-Elizabethtown, said “it is unfortunate that these adult crimes have trickled down to the ages we see them.”??

“Currently these types of crimes begin in juvenile court and they work their way up to being referred to adult court,” Deneen said in a Feb. 8 committee meeting. “What Senate Bill 20 says is when you commit this level of crime, this deadly crime, with a gun, that you start in an adult court. But it also provides prosecutorial discretion after consultation with the judge and the county attorney.”?

The bill states that a minor can be referred back to district court if “it is in the best interest of the public and the child to do so.”?

A child convicted as an adult would face the same penalties as an adult, under the bill, though they would be housed with fellow juveniles until turning 18.??

The bill is aimed at curbing what Deneen has called a “spike” in gun crimes committed by youth. It places “victims before perpetrators,” Deneen said.?

On the Senate floor, Deneen said “gun related crimes are jeopardizing our right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. … The victimization and trauma, PTSD and mental health issues of those victimized far outlasts the sentences awarded.”?

SB 20 makes other changes in the criminal code, including redefining “violent offender” by adding some crimes to the designation. Also, under the bill, those convicted of Class C felonies “involving the discharge of a weapon” would be required to serve half of their sentence before being eligible for parole, an increase from 20%.?

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, who voted against the bill in committee and on the floor Wednesday, filed five floor amendments, all of which were withdrawn.?

Westerfield said on the floor that “upon reflection I don’t believe I have the votes” to pass the amendments, which would have struck parts of the bill, among other things.?

The debate??

On the floor, Westerfield said there’s no evidence of a failure to transfer child offenders to adult court when appropriate. He pointed out the lack of county-specific data supporting the change.?

“That’s not what we have,” he said. “There’s no evidence of that. The evidence doesn’t exist.”?

Westerfield, who is the chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, added: “We’re moving forward without any information to back up what we’re asking for… to change the law.”?

Concerns about the bill were bipartisan.?

“We need to do comprehensive penal code reform and not add to the … inconsistent quilt of criminal justice policy (with) statutes that make no sense sometimes” said Sen. Robin Webb, D-Grayson, in speaking against the bill. “A statute is a reflection of us.”?

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, also voted against SB20.?

Carroll, chairman of the Senate Families and Children Committee, said while “I still agree with personal responsibility,” he is suspicious of “blanket policy” when it comes to juveniles.?

Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, who voted against the bill, said, “I … want my constituents to understand: I value your security. I want you to be able to go for walks at night in your neighborhoods.I want you to feel comfortable at the grocery store. I do not think that automatically sending 15-year-old children to adult court is going to provide that safety for you.”?

Sen. Adrienne Southworth, R-Lawrenceburg, passed on the bill because “we need to make sure accountability is swift” but “I think we’re far away from that.”?

Democratic? Caucus Chair Sen. Reginald Thomas, D-Lexington, said the bill, which he voted against, would “turn back the clock and go in the wrong direction.”?

“I thought we had learned as a country over the last 20 years,” Thomas said, “that this whole idea of ‘lock them up and throw away the key’ mentality was unsuccessful.”?

SB20 can now move to the House for consideration.?

Vicki Reed, right, is stepping down as commissioner of Juvenile Justice. Reed and Kerry Harvey, secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, spoke to lawmakers in May. (Kentucky Lantern photo by Jamie Lucke)

Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed has resigned, Gov. Andy Beshear announced Thursday.?

Beshear, who will begin his second term Dec. 12, also announced that Jeremy Slinker, director of Kentucky Emergency Management, is leaving the administration to take a job with the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA).

Reed, who has been the target of criticism from Republican lawmakers, is resigning effective Jan. 1. Beshear said his administration is now hiring for her job.?

“We appreciate all her efforts and pushing through pre-existing challenges and helping us make some of the most significant changes since the creation of DJJ,” Beshear said. “I know it hasn’t been easy for Vicki Reed to push through but every day, she’s shown up and tried to do her best and I’m grateful for that.”?

Reed’s resignation comes as the DJJ system in Kentucky has faced persistent staffing issues and controversies surrounding how children act and are treated within the system. Republican lawmakers have pressed for Beshear to replace Reed.

In her Nov. 14 letter of resignation to Beshear, Reed said: “It has been a tremendous honor to serve as commissioner in your administration. I thank you for granting me the opportunity and for your support during my term. While I am excited to step into a new chapter of my life, I will miss working with the professionals who are passionate about this important work we do.”

Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Kerry Harvey issued this statement:?“Commissioner Vicki Reed’s vast experience in juvenile justice matters and her complete commitment to the youth in the Department of Juvenile Justice’s care have been vital in implementing long overdue positive changes in the department. Our youth and staff were fortunate to have her leadership and we appreciate her service to the commonwealth. Under Commissioner Reed’s leadership, our juvenile facilities are safer now than ever before. We wish her the best of luck in her retirement.”

Morgan Hall, communications director for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, said the search has has begun for a new commissioner and interested candidates should be apply at this link.?

At his weekly media briefing on Thursday, Beshear announced other open unclassified positions and a website —jointeamky.ky.gov — ?to find out more information about them.

?Those jobs include the director of emergency management; commissioner of workforce development; inspector general for the Finance and Administration Cabinet; commissioner of the Department of Juvenile Justice; executive director of the Office of Policy and Audit for the Finance and Administration Cabinet; executive director, Office of Inspector General for the Cabinet for Health and Family Services and executive director of the Early Childcare Advisory Council.

Kerry Harvey (KETscreenshot)

Since 2015, there were six cases in which Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice staff engaged in sexual misconduct or activity with a youth in the system, staff told the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee Thursday.?

The misconduct could include “sexual harassment” or “inappropriate sexual banter,”? Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Kerry Harvey told lawmakers.?

Misconduct is “not necessarily some sort of contact offense,” he said.??

These investigations are only in reference to a staff member allegedly abusing or behaving inappropriately with a youth, including grooming. They do not include any misconduct between youth.??

Since 2015, 55 cases were investigated, Harvey told lawmakers. The yearly breakdown, he said, is:??

• 2015: 15 reports with 0 substantiated
• 2016: 8 reports with 1 substantiated
• 2018: 7 reports with 0 substantiated
• 2019: 7 reports with 1 substantiated
• 2020: 6 reports with 0 substantiated
• 2021: 4 reports with two substantiated?
• 2022: 1 report with 0 substantiated
• 2023: As of August, 4 reports with 1 substantiated

“Every time you have a case of this, it is obviously unacceptable, terrible” Harvey said. “It cannot happen and it is up to us to be as diligent as we can be to prevent it from happening.”?

Any witness to an alleged incident can call a 24/7 hotline and report it, said Ed Jewell, the special investigative manager with the Internal Investigative Branch of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet. Staff will then investigate claims to determine if it is credible. If there is evidence the incident is criminal, he said, law enforcement are notified.?

The turnaround goal for investigations is 30 days, Jewell said. IIB staff are merit employees who investigate independently, Harvey said.?

Steve Potts, a special investigative agent with the branch, said some of the cases that aren’t substantiated lack evidence or are proved false from the beginning through video or other evidence.?

Kentucky also participates in the Prison Rape Elimination Act (PREA), Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed said, which means staff undergo “extensive training.”?

“We also make it clear that even among the youth … there is no consensual conduct in detention,” Reed said. “That any is inappropriate.”?

This story may be updated.?

Cortney Downs, the Chief Equity Officer for Kentucky Youth Advocates

Black and multiracial youth in Kentucky are more likely to have complaints brought against them – essentially, police reports – and are disproportionately detained, Kentucky Youth Advocates staff told legislators in Frankfort Tuesday.?

Cortney Downs, the chief equity officer for Kentucky Youth Advocates, said to the Juvenile Justice Oversight Council and the Commission on Race & Access to Opportunity that Kentucky needs more data collection on “systemic factors” leading to disparities.?

The Kentucky Lantern reported in February that there are a disproportionate number of Black youth in Kentucky’s detention centers. A grassroots organization whose intervention work has seen some success, One Lexington thinks if a similar program can be implemented across the state, violence among younger Kentuckians could decline.?

“There has been tremendous progress that has been made over quite a bit of time,” Downs said. “But there are still some of those areas where the racial disparities exist.”?

Downs said Tuesday that Black youth in the commonwealth are much more likely to be complained about. They are also detained three times more frequently than their representation in the state’s population.?

In 2022, the youth population of Kentucky was 81% white and 11% Black. But that same year, complaints that resulted in detainment were 39% Black and 46% white.

Additionally, Downs said, an Arizona study showed youth of color are more likely to have complaints in their files. Those may include accusations that they don’t show remorse or are uncooperative. That hurts their chances of getting their cases diverted.?

Diversion holds youth “account-able for their behav-ior with-out resort-ing to legal sanc-tions, court over-sight or the threat of con-fine-ment,” according to the Annie E. Casey Foun-da-tion.?

The foundation says diversion “is more effec-tive in reduc-ing recidi-vism than con-ven-tion-al judi-cial inter-ven-tions” and youth whose cases are diverted are 45% less likely to reoffend. KYA wants to see more diversion implemented in the state.?

One Lexington?

More solutions for the state’s juvenile justice system may be found in a Lexington program that lawmakers are examining. One Lexington works to use governmental resources and community partnerships to combat gun violence among youth, director Devine Carama told lawmakers.?

Among the work One Lexington does is mediating arguments between youth in school to keep things from turning violent outside school and bringing in police partners to help combat generational fear of or mistrust of law enforcement officers.?

Carama said he believes these grassroots efforts can be thanked for lowering shootings. As of June 2022, he said, Lexington had more than 20 homicides. It’s seen nine so far this year. There were also nearly 60 nonfatal shootings at this time in 2022, he said. That’s down to about 30 this year.?

“Obviously this isn’t something we celebrate, because there’s still people that have lost their lives,” Carama told legislators. “But we do think that the work that we’re doing with our community partners is making a difference and making an impact.”?

Meanwhile, Carama said, the access that youth have to high power firearms is “unfathomable.”?

“Sometimes I wonder if we’re chasing our tails,” he said. “I had a 14-year-old tell me once: ‘Mr. Devine, it’s easier for me to get a gun than to get a job.’”?

Greensburg Republican Sen. David P. Givens, President Pro Tempore, said legislators will look at several collaboration points. Those include looking at ways to get youth working and “helping them find purpose and meaning” in life.?

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — Despite salary increases, persistent understaffing is forcing a shuffling of Kentucky juveniles being held in detention.

The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice plans to move girls from a detention center in Campbell County to one in Boyd County for an estimated 90 days in response to staffing difficulties.?

The boys being held in Boyd County will be moved to Breathitt County while staffing recruitment continues at Campbell County. The Northern Kentucky center is the only facility for females in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system.?

During his weekly news conference, Gov. Andy Beshear said the temporary move was because of “critical staffing issues.”?

He also warned that the state’s current system cannot safely house extra juveniles who may be detained under legislation set to take effect next year. ?The new law requires juveniles charged with any of 15 violent felonies to be detained before their detention hearing for up to 48 hours to receive a mental health assessment.?

Beshear said probation and parole officers from the Department of Corrections have been volunteering on their days off to “help keep the Campbell Youth Detention Center safe and secure. They provide a crucial assistance and we cannot thank them enough. Unfortunately, our staffing numbers there are nowhere near where they need to be,” he said, especially in light of “significant needs” among the juveniles housed there.

The Campbell County site will be used as a short-term holding and drop off facility, Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Kerry Harvey told the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee in Frankfort Thursday.

“We have more staff there (at Campbell County) than we did, but we still are struggling,” Harvey said. “We’ve been holding it together by sending DJJ employees from other detention centers to work shifts there.”?

But, he pointed out: “That’s not sustainable over the long haul.”?

“That’s not something that we want to do,” Harvey said. “As you manage these populations. You’re going to have to call an audible every once in a while to meet the changing circumstances. And that’s what we’re doing here.”?

‘Stubborn’ but improving staffing issues

Though understaffing in Kentucky’s DJJ system has “remained stubborn,” interest has increased, officials told a legislative committee Thursday.?

As of June 14, there were 350 filled positions — an increase from 313 on Jan. 1 and 327 on March 29.

As of Thursday, there were 37 vacant correctional officer (security) positions in juvenile detention facilities, a spokesperson for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet told the Lantern.

The increase in workers comes after concerted efforts to increase staff at youth detention centers, including a 10% raise in 2021 and an 8% increase in 2022. Starting pay was raised to $50,000.

Additionally, the General Assembly appropriated $30 million in 2023 to get Department of Corrections correctional officers in adult prisons to a salary of $50,000.?

“The trendline is good,” Harvey said. “We’re improving. We’re now at compensation levels that are competitive for the moment.”?

But he warned that the numbers may fluctuate.?

“Labor markets are not static,” Harvey said. “They always move. … I hope we will all work together to make sure that we don’t fall behind again because we’ve seen the consequences of that.”?

One of the fallouts of staffing shortages, Commissioner Vicki Reed said, is that kids can exploit that and act out. When there aren’t enough staff, Reed said, it “creates a ripple effect that goes through our entire system.”?

“They know when we’re short staffed; they are very astute,” she said. “Superintendents tell me that they’ll know in their cell who’s coming on duty by the sound of their footsteps. And they know ?… it’s easier to create a diversion. They know the staff are going to be slower to respond.”?

Why the focus on juvenile justice now??

Kentucky lawmakers and political leaders have been focused on juvenile justice issues this year after reports of heightened violence in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers. Republicans have also criticized Beshear’s administration for the understaffing and other problems in Kentucky’s centers.?

Beshear previously announced the establishment of the girls’ facility in December.?

Boys in the Boyd facility will be transferred to Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center. Beshear said those facilities have the space and staffing to support the juveniles.?

Campbell and Boyd counties are about a two-and-a-half hour drive from one another. Breathitt County is about a two hour drive from Boyd County. He said his administration will work closely with law enforcement officials to assist with transportation.

“This is a step that no one wants to have to take, to move juveniles to different facilities, but this is our best opportunity to provide the most safety for them and for the staff,” the governor said. “And no one would want to see a bad outcome in Campbell County because of our current staffing issues.”

Lawmakers passed several bills aimed at addressing the issues, including maintaining workers’ salaries and requiring juveniles charged with violent crimes to be detained for 48 hours so they can access mental health services. The mandatory hold takes effect in July 2024.?

Some worry the 48-hold, which was part of House Bill 3, which doesn’t include weekends or holidays, could result in youth being detained much longer than intended. The General Assembly passed the bill and Beshear signed it.?

Recently, the General Assembly’s Juvenile Justice Oversight Council was informed that if the legislation had been in effect in 2022, an additional 415 juveniles would have been automatically sent to a juvenile detention center after their arrests for violent felonies and before their detention hearings. That year, 1,162 juveniles were detained at that point in the process. The decisions to ?release at intake are made by law enforcement officers, court designated workers or judges. HB 3 will end their discretion in the decisions.

When asked if he thought the legislature should reconsider the mandatory hold, Beshear said the current system cannot safely hold an extra 400 or 450 juveniles with its current staffing.?

“At some point, the policy has to meet the reality of your ability to serve these juveniles in a safe and responsible way. … This is an ongoing challenge,” Beshear said. “We haven’t seen the last work from the legislature. We’re going to continue to brief and work with them. And it’s going to be important for us to very clearly express the capacity that we have, that we may have in the future.”

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

Gov. Andy Beshear signed into law on Monday two bills passed by the legislature aimed at improving Kentucky’s juvenile justice system.?

The first, House Bill 3, allocates around $20 million to renovate and operate a Jefferson County Youth Detention Center and a facility in Lyndon in Jefferson County.

It will also mandate detention for the most violent juvenile offenders starting July 1, 2024 and open their records for three years. At that time, they can be closed if the minor hasn’t had any other offenses.?

Bill supporters have said the required stay – which isn’t supposed to exceed 48 hours – is important so youth have time to access mental health services.?

Others testified that since the 48 hours doesn’t include weekends or holidays, youth could inadvertently be detained much longer than that.?

The bill received bipartisan support during the session and came after reports of heightened violence in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers.?

Reps. Keturah Herron and Lisa Willner, Louisville Democrats, also introduced legislation that would create a Bill of Rights for incarcerated youth aimed at improving mental health and keeping kids from being arrested in the first place. It did not get a hearing.?

Beshear also signed Senate Bill 162 on Monday. It will allot more than $50 million for salaries, retention, new workers and security upgrades, including $30 million for workers in the adult corrections system, the Lantern previously reported.?

The Beshear administration has come under sharp criticism from Republican lawmakers for understaffing and other problems ?in juvenile detention facilities that produced a wave and violence and injuries.

“We hope no juvenile in Kentucky finds their way to a Department of Juvenile Justice facility,”? DJJ Commissioner Vicki Reed said in a statement, “but if they do, we are committed to providing the programming they need to successfully return to their community.”?

Sen. Karen Berg

If you or someone you know is contemplating suicide, please call or text the National Suicide Prevention Lifeline at 988.?

The Trevor Project, which aims to end suicide among LGBTQ+ youth, also has trained counselors available around the clock. Reach them at 1-866-488-7386, via chat at https://www.thetrevorproject.org/get-help/, or by texting START to 678678.?

FRANKFORT — The Kentucky General Assembly passed legislation Thursday night that would, among other things, ban gender-affirming care for transgender minors.?

The vote came after language from the controversial House Bill 470 was slipped into another bill, Senate Bill 150.

As the vote hit the pass threshold around 6 p.m., Sen. Karen Berg, D-Louisville, reached for a tissue to wipe tears from her eyes.?

Henry Berg-Bousseau, a trans man and Berg’s son, died by suicide in December and advocated for LGBTQ+ rights. She has spoken in committees and on the floor against bills targeting the LGBTQ community all session.?

The anti-trans legislation had surprisingly stalled in the Senate Wednesday night when Republican Danny Carroll, R-Benton, successfully proposed an amendment that significantly scaled back restrictions on transgender health care contained in the original bill. A maneuver in the House Thursday brought the harsher restrictions and penalties on medical professionals back to the Senate for a vote, and this time Republicans with the exception of Carroll were united? behind it.?

Before SB 150 passed, Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong made an unsuccessful motion to instead take up Carroll’s pared-down version of House Bill 470 that the body voted to lay on the clerk’s desk Wednesday night.?

Republicans pushed for the restrictions despite outcries and protest from physicians, mental health professionals, parents and transgender Kentuckians who testified in front of multiple committees.?

The final Senate vote was 30-7. When the bill passed, people in the gallery yelled at legislators and were removed.?

“Jesus was wearing drag,” one said. Another cried: “You’re all murderers.”?

The bill will now go to Gov. Andy Beshear who is expected to veto it. At his weekly press conference in the Capitol, he said he believes decisions about the transition of minors should be between parents and their kids.?

“I believe the medical decisions for all of our youth, including our transgender youth, ought to be made by their families,” said Beshear.?

He also said “we owe it to” Berg to not take up this issue at this time.?

“I wish everybody would respect her and her loss enough not to be doing this either at all or during this session,” Beshear said.??

Other legislators opposed to the legislation – and community advocates – have pointed to a February Mason-Dixon poll that showed 71% of Kentucky registered voters don’t want lawmakers making the decisions about trans youth’s health care.?

Interviewers polled 625 voters this year for the poll. Of those polled, 21% — about one in five — Kentuckians did support legislation like HB 470, with 8% undecided, the Fairness Campaign previously reported.

The American Civil Liberties Union of Kentucky quickly condemned SB150 as the “worst anti-trans bill in the nation.”

“This dangerous bill and others like it across the country are nothing more than a desperate attempt to score political points by targeting people who simply want to live their lives,” Amber Duke, interim executive director of the ACLU of Kentucky, said in a statement. “True democracy requires meaningful and informed debate and engagement from the public. The shameful process on display in the Kentucky House undermines the public trust in government.”

After?Thursday’s vote Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said “the genesis of this measure springs from a national agenda of fearmongering.”

“This final measure transforms the Republican super-majority caucuses from a historic commitment of small government and personal liberty into a party pushing an agenda of a wildly expanded government intrusion,” said Brooks. “It means that in Kentucky, neither medical practices nor deeply personal decisions around sexuality and gender-identification are the purviews of doctors and parents but instead are under the ever-watchful eye of state government.”

How did 470 and 150 join??

With time running out in this session, House Republicans added the language of HB470 to SB150 in an effort to revive anti-trans legislation that had stalled in the Senate.

In a hastily called committee meeting, provisions restricting health care for trans youth were grafted onto Senate Bill 150, described by sponsor Sen. Max Wise, R-Campbellsville, as a “parents rights” measure, which imposes new anti-LGBTQ restrictions on public schools.?

The House approved the hybrid bill? 75-22.?

Senate Bill 150 initially garnered pushback for language that prohibited school districts from punishing school staff if they misgendered a student. Senator Max Wise, the primary sponsor, has framed the bill as about protecting the First Amendment rights of school staff and said the bill didn’t prevent school staff from using a student’s correct pronouns.?

The Senate passed SB 150 last month despite pleas from Democrats and opponents of the bill who said it would harm vulnerable children. Republicans said the legislation was broadly needed to strengthen parental rights.?

But the bill expanded broadly in scope in a committee meeting that caught many off guard, drawing harsh criticism from Democrats that the additional language was a last-ditch effort to pass such provisions that had stalled in the state Senate and doing so in an anti-transparent manner.?

“The thing is that if you’re right, if the legislation is right, then let’s do it in the light of day, not under the cover of darkness,” said Rep. George Brown Jr., D-Lexington on the House floor. “Not in secrecy.”?

What happened in the House??

When Senate Bill 150 reached the floor Thursday, House Democrats stalled for more than an hour while giving floor speeches against the measure. Some cried, some spoke directly to LGBTQ youth and told them they are “perfect” the way they are.?

Rep. Pamela Stevenson, D-Louisville, gave an impassioned speech in which she said: “How dare you use my God for things against his people?”?

“If you don’t want to have an abortion, don’t have one. If you don’t want to bother with trans kids, don’t,” said Stevenson. “But how dare you tell other people, other parents that bear the responsibility for their children, what they must do according to your wishes and God’s wishes?”?

The newly changed SB 150 passed the House by a vote of 75-22 and was sent to the Senate. Two Republicans joined Democrats in opposing the legislation.?

But not before Democrats criticized the speed with which the bill was changed and what they called “hate” toward transgender youth.?

“You cannot erase a group of people,” said Rep. Tina Bojanowski, D-Louisville. “These children will be transgender. They may not get puberty blockers to allow them to have a more fulfilling adulthood, but they will be transgender.”?

Rep. and Speaker Pro Tempore David Meade, R-Stanford, carried the bill on the House floor for Wise.?

He said electoral repercussions of this legislation didn’t matter because he believed it’s “the right thing to do.”?

“If we’re going to protect children,” Meade said, “we need to ensure that surgery or drugs that completely alter their life and alter their body is not something we should be allowing them until they’re adults and can choose that for themselves.”?

Meade mentioned a “statewide broadcast poll” that he says showed Independents, Republicans and moderate Democrats supported such legislation.?

He declined to say where it came from when a Lantern reporter asked him about it, except to say it was from a private organization.?

Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, the first openly LGBTQ representative, called the bill “disrespectful.”?

And, she said: it’s “very harmful and very sickening.”?

“I’ve heard individuals say that they have been oppressed,” Herron said. “How dare you — as a Black, queer masculine-presenting woman — how dare you use the word ‘oppression.’ Not only myself, but other LGBTQ individuals in this state have been impacted and continue to be impacted by the ridiculousness of the words that have been coming out of this body.”

What did the Senators say??

The Senate talked about SB150 for less than an hour before passing it – easily.?

Carroll voted against the bill, condemning the divisiveness around the topic.?

“Why can’t we trust our doctors, as we do for every other issue, to guide us through these things?” asked Carroll. “When are we going to get past all of this extremist, all the radicalism?”?

Carroll successfully narrowed the scope of HB 470 this week via a floor amendment that passed 19-17 Wednesday. His version proposed giving parents more leeway than the original bill to make healthcare decisions for their transgender children.?

Parents or guardians could provide written consent for their trans children to get nonsurgical care, like reversible puberty blockers, under Carroll’s version.?

LGBTQ+ community organizations said Carroll’s revision of the bill was an improvement, but still “heinous.”?

“Can I say that if we allowed the (puberty) blockers to be prescribed and utilized,? would it…save hundreds, thousands of lives? I can’t say that. But you know what? If it saved one kid…one…what does it hurt?” Carroll asked. “I don’t understand.”?

Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, voted for SB150 despite saying, while explaining his vote, “I’m not crazy about this bill.”

But he reiterated his position that he doesn’t “agree with transition” and “I don’t understand it.”?

Sen. Stephen Meredith, R-Leitchfield, called it hypocritical for anyone who supports abortion access to condemn the bill.?

Meanwhile, Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said he believes the body “can do better” and said he had “rage in my body” over the issue.?

Sen. Reginald Thomas, D-, said Kentucky is joining the “don’t say gay” movement and creating “bathroom police.”?

In her testimony, Berg said the body is “failing miserably” when it comes to this issue.??

“It’s not that you haven’t had time to learn,” she said. “My child came up here 10 years ago. You had time to understand the science. You had time to get yourself educated on this subject. This is absolute, willful, intentional hate – hate for a small group of people that are the weakest and the most vulnerable among us.”?

Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville (LRC Public Information)

FRANKFORT — A Republican-backed bill that would reopen a juvenile detention center in Louisville and open some minors’ confidential records has now cleared both chambers of the Kentucky legislature.

House Bill 3 passed the House in late February and the Senate on Tuesday along party lines, 29-7.

Democrats argued unsuccessfully against the bill’s mandatory detention requirement for juveniles accused of violent offenses, arguing that the decision should remain at the discretion of a judge.

A floor amendment from Sen. Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, failed. It would have clarified that the district judge would make the decision on “whether to further detain the child or to release the child to the court-designated worker for the intake process.”

On the floor Tuesday, Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, who presented the bill on the Senate side, called that amendment “unnecessary.”

Sen. Cassie Chambers Armstrong, D-Louisville, said there was a “lot to like” in the bill, and “I believe that the heart of this bill is in the right place.”

However, she took issue with the mandatory pre-trial detention component.

“Sometimes our young people do need to be detained,” Chambers Armstrong said. “And currently, our law lets those closest to the facts in a particular case make that determination. Judges have discretion.”

Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, said the detention part of the bill “has to do with violent thugs.”

“The public demands,” he said, “that people be held accountable for violent crimes.”

Among the bill’s provisions:

• Opening the records of juveniles who confess to or are found guilty of violent felonies and then closing the records after three years if the juvenile doesn’t have any other offenses in that time.

• Allocating $17 million for renovation of a 40-bed Jefferson County detention center

• Allocating $2 million for operational costs associated with the facility

• Allocating $5.8 million for transportation costs

• Allocating $9.6 million for Department of Juvenile Justice staffing needs.

• Holding parents accountable for truancy.

• Making sure violent children in detention are evaluated by a mental health provider.

• Juveniles who are accused of a violent felony offense “shall” be held in a secure juvenile detention facility for up to 48 hours, pending a detention hearing.

Last week, the Senate passed two other juvenile justice bills aimed at boosting security and supporting salary increases in the justice system as well as having a third party audit the system.

The focus on juvenile justice this session comes after reports of heightened violence in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers.

McKenna Horsley contributed to this report.?

Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, called on the Kentucky legislature to put more funding into improving treatment and conditions for Kentucky kids being held in detention. (LRC photo)

Two Senate bills aimed at addressing Kentucky’s juvenile justice issues cleared the Senate Appropriations and Revenue committee unanimously on Wednesday.?

The first, SB162, would allot millions of dollars to the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ)? for salaries, retention, new workers, security upgrades and more – among other things.?

Those price tags are:

• $3.2 million for salary increases that have been promised to DJJ workers.?
• $4.8 million for DJJ salary increases to other job classifications.?
• $30 million to the adult corrections budget for salary increases for corrections officers.?
• $9.7 million for DJJ for 146 new youth workers for detention centers.?
• $200k for DJJ for development of a defender management system.?
• $4 million to DJJ for security upgrades and basic security needs.?
• $1.5 million for a diversionary program that will identify and provide treatment for juveniles needing mental health support for “severe” mental illnesses.?
• $1.75 million to retain design architects who know about detention designs and can help design regional facilities.?

“We must ensure DJJ never returns to the state it has functioned in over the past few years,” Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, told colleagues while presenting the latest version of his bill.?

Additionally, the bill would require:?

• All eight juvenile detention centers to be under the supervision of one supervisor who reports directly to the commissioner.
• A maintained comprehensive, centralized data tracking system for the Department of Juvenile Justice.?

An independent audit?

A second bill, sponsored by Sen. David P. Givens, R-Greensburg, would allocate $500,000 for an independent review of Kentucky DJJ.?

“This legislation would tell the Office of the Auditor to contract with an outside independent third party to perform a full performance review of these DJJ pre-adjudication facilities,” Givens told colleagues, stressing the “independent” part.?

“We’re saying whatever entity that the auditor contracts with cannot be the current entity that accredits these facilities,” he said.?

The audit scope, Givens said, would include:

• Interviews with frontline employees
• Review of the current staffing procedures and compliance or non compliance with those procedures
• Review of incident reporting procedures
• Receipt review and actions taken by DJJ related to complaints and concerns from employees

The report would be due on Oct. 15.?

In February, a?Republican-backed bill that would reopen a juvenile detention center in Louisville passed the House 79-18 and?may now go to the Senate for a vote.

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT —A Republican-backed bill that would reopen a juvenile detention center in Louisville passed the House 79-18 hours after it passed a?House committee Tuesday morning.?

It may now go to the Senate for a vote.

Members of the House Standing Committee On Appropriations And Revenue voted 20-2 – with two passes – to advance House Bill 3 hours before it passed on the floor.?

The bill would hold parents more accountable in juvenile truancy cases and adds evaluation by mental health providers for kids in the system, sponsors told the committee. It also says juveniles who are accused of a violent felony offense “shall” be held in a secure juvenile detention facility for up to 48 hours, pending a detention hearing.?

Under HB3, the records of juveniles who confess to or are found guilty of violent crimes — like rape, murder or robbery — would be open for three years. If that youth doesn’t commit any other crimes during that period, the record would be closed, said primary sponsor Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville.?

Still, that was a point with which several speakers against the bill took issue.?

Kish Cumi Price, the president and CEO of the Louisville Urban League, called it “penalizing them for their future.”

Marcie Timmerman, the executive director of Kentucky’s chapter of Mental Health of America, told legislators that granting broader “access to a child’s worst day” would be a mistake as “we do have a mental health crisis in our state and nation.”?

Representatives from the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy and the Catholic Conference of Kentucky also spoke against part of the bill before the committee Tuesday. They opposed what they called “mandatory detention” language in the bill.?

Rep. Nima Kulkarni, D-Louisville, sponsored an amendment that would replace the bill’s mandatory detention requirement for some juveniles by leaving the decision with a judge, but the House did not hear it.?

Rep. Kimberly Poore Moser, R-Taylor Mill, sponsored amendments adding mental health evaluations for children. She told committee members she wanted a “framework for behavioral health therapy, mental health treatment” that would help in the long term.?

Youth in the system, she said, are “obviously in a situation where they’re involved in crime, in criminal activity. There’s always an underlying cause. And we want to make sure that these kids get an assessment for treatment or cognitive behavioral therapy or treatment for a substance use disorder.”?

The price tag?

The latest version of HB3 assigns more dollars to renovating and opening a Jefferson County facility. It would allot $17 million for that work, an increase from the previous $8.9 million to renovate and reopen a 40-bed Jefferson County Youth Detention Center.

The city of Louisville had long operated its own facility for juveniles in custody, but closed it in 2020 to save money, the Lantern previously reported.?

Louisville juveniles then entered the state-run system, which has been plagued by violence, unsafe conditions and understaffing. Republicans have blamed these issues on mismanagement by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration.

Work in progress

HB3 would allocate $2 million for operational costs associated with the facility, $5.8 million for transportation costs, and $9.6 million for Department of Juvenile Justice staffing needs.??

Ashley Spalding, the Kentucky Center for Economic Policy’s?research director, said the version of HB3 that the House passed is an improvement on earlier drafts but still raises concerns.?“In particular, the bill’s mandatory detention provision and the removal of juvenile record confidentiality would harm, not improve public safety.”

?“Study after study shows that rather than a reduction in crime, detention is associated with negative outcomes for kids and communities, including increased likelihood of recidivism. And removing confidentiality of records will affect kids as they attempt to move on from their mistakes and apply for higher education, workforce training, housing and employment.

?“On the floor today, House sponsors referred to the bill as a ‘work in progress’ and the Senate should continue to improve this bill, which provides necessary funding to open a facility in Jefferson County.”

Reps. Keturah Herron and Lisa Willner, both Louisville Democrats. Photo by Sarah Ladd for the Kentucky Lantern.

FRANKFORT — While there’s bipartisan support for returning Louisville kids in the juvenile justice system to Jefferson County, at least two Louisville Democratic lawmakers said they would invest in preventive services rather than detention.

The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday advanced House Bill 3, which provides $8.9 million to renovate and reopen a 40-bed Jefferson County Youth Detention Center.

Sponsored by Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, the bill was approved 15-1 with two passes.

HB 3 also mandates that youth taken into custody for violent offenses be detained for up to 48 hours before receiving a detention hearing and an evaluation on mental health and substance use disorders. “I believe those two things are very important for our most troubled children to try to get their lives turned around,” Bratcher said.

The bill would open records of juveniles convicted of violent crimes and hold parents more accountable for a child’s truancy from school.

Rep. Keturah Herron, D-Louisville, questioned opening now-confidential juvenile records, saying the information could be used by violent gangs, and approving almost $9 million for renovation before assessing the building’s needs.

“If you ask anyone in Jefferson County, we want our kids back in Jefferson County. That is a must,” said Herron. But she called investing in a Louisville detention facility right now “short sighted.”

The city of Louisville had long operated its own facility for juveniles in custody, but closed it in 2020 to save money. Louisville juveniles then entered the state-run system, which has been plagued by violence, unsafe conditions and understaffing, which Republicans have blamed on mismanagement by Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration.

The Beshear administration closed a state facility in Lyndon in Jefferson County last November, saying it was ill equipped to house offenders, which dispersed more juveniles from Jefferson County to state-run facilities in other counties. On Tuesday, Beshear’s budget chief, speaking to a House budget subcommittee, outlined a $46 million administration proposal for security upgrades to juvenile facilities, an overhaul of ?the state facility in Lyndon, and plans for transportation and continuing the pay increases for staff in juvenile facilities.

Violence and its impact on kids

The House Judiciary Committee heard testimony Wednesday about violence and its impact on juveniles in Louisville. David James, deputy mayor of Louisville for emergency services, said that 30% of homicides in Jefferson County are related to gang violence.?

James said Louisville is asking the Department of Juvenile Justice to operate a state facility in the city and that the city government would provide personnel and finance programming.?

“Because we don’t have a facility for the children now, it is hampering Louisville’s ability to protect its citizens and to protect those children,” James said.?

Josh Crawford, a Louisvillian and director of Criminal Justice Initiatives at the Georgia Center of Opportunity, told the committee that more than 200 juveniles have been shot in Louisville over the past two years. Additionally, 11% of homicide arrestees were juveniles. The national average is 8%.?

Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, said,“Unfortunately in Louisville, we’ve got to send our kids to Adair County in a situation in a facility with staff that don’t understand our kids, and they’re not ready for our kids. We need them home,” Nemes said.

State Budget Director and Executive Cabinet Secretary John Hicks on Tuesday had expressed concerns about committing $8.9 million before knowing the Louisville facility’s renovation needs. He said Beshear administration officials were in talks with Louisville Metro Government to schedule a walkthrough of the? building.?

Bill of Rights

Earlier Wednesday Herron and Rep. Lisa Willner, also a Louisville Democrat, held a news conference to talk about their House Bill 266 creating a Bill of Rights for incarcerated youth.

The Incarcerated Children’s Bill of Rights would say youth in detention have the right to:

• Be kept safe, informed, and free from emotional, psychological, verbal, and physical abuse;
• Speak with, see, and touch their family;
• Access appropriate medical, mental health, and behavioral health care;
• An education meeting their individual needs;
• A nutritious and healthy diet;
• Be treated with respect and recognition of their dignity and individuality;
• Be free from unreasonable use of seclusion and restraint
• Receive notice of and participate in court hearings;
• Access counsel; and
• Not be judged, blamed, or stigmatized by detention.

Herron and Willner are also working on two companion bills that would establish a citizens group to provide oversight for juvenile justice in Kentucky and create a fund to support community-based services and detention alternatives. That fund would be administered by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, according to a working bill draft.

“The fund would be able to receive money from state appropriations, gifts, grants, federal funds,” said Willner and would get a head start with an initial $9.6 million appropriation for 2023-2024.

The review board would be composed of at least three people who will serve at least three years, have interest in child welfare and should represent the community they’re reviewing. Additionally, at least two members of the board would need to be in law, medicine, psychology, social work or education, according to a working draft of the bill.

“There has been far too little focus on our kids, and we’re proposing to change that,”? Wilner said.

“There have been reports of kids assaulting one another, staff abusing kids, kids attacking staff,” Willner said. “While these stories are shocking it is not unpredictable that sustained isolation and consistent dehumanizing treatment will lead to some terrible incidents.”

Herron said: “House Bill 3 does not address any of these issues” like mental health and preventative services.

“It does address issues as far as funding for an actual physical facility. But it does not address the issues as it relates to reentry prevention and alternatives to alternatives to detention.”

After HB3 passed the committee, Kentucky Youth Advocates said in a statement that, “Depending on its final form,” the bill “carries the ambiguity of that Chinese spy balloon.”

The advocacy group praised parts of the bill but said it could go further.

“We believe that continuing to give judges discretion regarding youth detention rather than making the course of action to be a legislative mandate – which is expensive, ineffective, and, in fact, increases the likelihood of recidivism,” the statement said, adding support for “preventive focus on programming.”

From left, Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed and John Hicks, state budget director and Executive Cabinet secretary, address a meeting of the House Budget Review Subcommittee on Justice, Public Safety and Judiciary. (Photo for the Kentucky Lantern by Liam Niemeyer.)

FRANKFORT — State Budget Director and Executive Cabinet Secretary John Hicks told lawmakers Tuesday that the price tags to support executive branch reforms in the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice are $20 million in the next fiscal year’s operating budget and $26 million in the current capital budget.?

Amid discussions about Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, representatives on the House Budget Review Subcommittee on Justice, Public Safety and Judiciary heard an update from Beshear administration officials on Tuesday.?

Hicks and Department of Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed outlined how the system works and recent changes to it. In recent months, violent outbreaks in the juvenile detention centers have made headlines.?

The plans Hicks outlined were announced by Gov. Andy Beshear last week. The operating budget request includes maintaining the starting pay of youth detention workers at $50,000 annually, supporting transportation services and hiring more staff in detention centers. The capital budget request would include improvements to the Lyndon facility in Jefferson County and security upgrades to youth detention centers.?

In addition to the $20 million and $26 million requests, another is $30 million to raise the starting? pay of adult correctional institutions’ staff to $50,000 annually.?

Hicks said he “could assure you the money’s there,” though the projection would be shaved a bit if House Bill 1, which lowers the state income tax, goes into effect.?

“But even if you take that away, we still have a sustained level of recurring resources that are there not only for this, but for some of the other of the governor’s recommendations, particularly in the areas of K-12 education and universal pre-K,” Hicks said.

Subcommittee Chairman Patrick Flannery, R-Olive Hill, asked Hicks how House Bill 3, filed by Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, would compare to the administration’s request. The bill would allocate $8.9 million in the next fiscal year to the Department of Juvenile Justice for renovating a building for a downtown Louisville youth detention center.?

Hicks said a youth detention facility in Lyndon, which is also in Jefferson County, was established after Louisville Metro Government “decided to no longer provide detention center services to the Jefferson County youth.” The Lyndon site was previously a youth development facility.?

“We haven’t done a full walkthrough there to see what are the renovations that would be necessary to bring that facility back to a secure detention center,” Hicks said. “So the first reaction to that is, I don’t know if $8.9 million is the right number because we haven’t had an opportunity to go in there and kind of determine what are the things that have to be done.”?

In a press conference earlier this month, Bratcher said members of a legislative workgroup and Louisville Metro Government officials were in agreement about Louisville having a youth detention center.

The administration is in contact with local government officials and is working to schedule a walkthrough, Hicks said.?

He also pointed out that the funding in HB 3 would be appropriated next year. To get started on the facility as soon as possible, the funds are needed this year. Another concern Hicks had was appropriating state funds to the department to retrofit another government’s facility.?

“We understand the spirit and intent, particularly of the $8.9 million, but we think there are some things to be further considered before we really can land on a position there,” Hicks said.?

Edward "EJ" LaGant-ta (Photo by Kentucky Youth Advocates)

When Edward “EJ” LaGantta was arrested for the first time, he was in middle school.

Not yet a teenager, he was arrested after being in a fight with a white boy.?

Louisville’s LaGantta, who is Black, went into juvenile detention for the first of five times, including for truancy.?

The white boy, LaGantta heard, went home.?

LaGantta’s experiences with the justice system highlight broader problems and stark disparities.?

There are a disproportionate number of Black youth in Kentucky’s detention centers. Their incarcerated percentages have increased over at least the past four years.?

Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice data — obtained through a Lantern open records request — show a sharp incline in the admissions of Black male youth incarcerated in Kentucky.

In 2021, they overtook white male totals. Across all races documented, admissions to youth detention centers rose in 2021 and 2022 after a decline in 2020. In 2020, there were 1,892 admissions. That number rose to 2,065 in 2021 and 3,402 last year.?

That drop in 2021 is not surprising, according to Rebecca DiLoreto, a Lexington criminal defense lawyer, juvenile advocate and professor.?

“You can tell the effort being made during COVID to not incarcerate” lower-level offenders, she said.

“My thinking is a lot of that shooting way up” in 2021, she added, “has to do with courts returning to their previous practice of using … the default consequence — being jail — for all kinds of offenders, instead of thinking in a more particularized way.”?

Documented disparities within juvenile justice know no gender.?

Although the number of females incarcerated is lower than that of males, female incarcerations also increased in 2021. The Black female census increased more than the white female total. In 2022, there were 137 more Black female youths behind bars than in 2021. For white females, the census jumped by 105 — 32? fewer than Black girls.??

There are more white people than Black people in Kentucky.?

In 2021, Kentucky’s child population was 9% Black and 77% white, according to the Kentucky Youth Advocates’ most recent Kids Count report.?

Black Kentuckians made up roughly 9% of the commonwealth’s population in 2022, with white Kentuckians accounting for 87%, according to the United States Census Bureau.?

But in 2022, Black youth were 45% of the detention center population in the state. White youth were 43% that same year.?

In fact, the percentage of Black youth in Kentucky’s detention centers has increased every year since 2019. All the while, percentages of white youth decreased.?

A ‘shock’ to the consciousness?

Reports of heightened violence in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers prompted the Beshear administration to reorganize how youth are incarcerated as well as increase the starting pay for some detention workers.?

Kentucky’s legislators don’t all agree on how best to address youth violence, such as how and to what extent guards should be armed.

Senate Bill 200, which passed in 2014 and went into effect in 2015, reformed responses to serious crimes, among other things.?

“The one thing that it didn’t do that I wish it had done — and that is to address the racial disparities we have,” Sen. Whitney Westerfield, R-Fruit Hill, said on the Jan. 23 episode of KET’s Kentucky Tonight.?

“If that 83-84% doesn’t shock your conscience, I don’t know what can,” Westerfield said, referring to the high number of incarcerated youth from Jefferson County who are Black.?

The Kids Count report explained the disparities between white youth and youth of color this way: “Perceptions that youth of color are older than their actual age, or are more culpable, contribute to young Black children having complaints filed against them at a higher rate compared to their White peers.”?

DiLoreto agreed. “What happens is that that young boy who’s African American and acts out – his behavior is … adultified and he’s perceived and treated as much older than he is, much more able to control everything that he does, and really having evil intent,” she said.?

“The whole adultification of youth … happens in the schools and it happens in the courts,” DiLoreto said. “It happens with police in the community.”??

LaGantta feels his case was a perfect example of this adultification — and the racial disparity within it.

If Black children get in trouble with the law, he said, “they’re already trying to find a way to put us into the adult system.”?

But, he feels, “If you’re a white kid, they would be trying to figure out how to change you or rehabilitate you.”?

A national problem?

Kentucky isn’t alone in this problem. The American Civil Liberties Union says Black children are imprisoned around five times more than their white counterparts.

The Sentencing Project, a research and advocacy nonprofit based in Washington D.C., reported in 2021 that Hawaii is the only state where Black youth are not more likely to be in juvenile justice custody.?

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported last year that, among youth ages 10-24, homicide is the third leading cause of death. But among non-hispanic Black youth, it is the leading cause.?

Violence impacting youth is expensive too, costing around $100 billion every year, per the CDC. Daily, more than 1,000 youth get treatment for assault injuries.

The effects don’t end with a hospital bill.?

Youth violence can result in “serious and lasting effects” on people’s health — physical, mental and social, the CDC says.?

It can also hinder development, decision-making, lead to learning challenges and more.?

A ‘feeder system for adult crime’?

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, told the Kentucky Lantern that there is little benefit in punishment-centric juvenile detention programs.?

A child who experiences “traditional” detention is more likely to end up back in jail —and for a worse crime, Brooks said. Traditional detention refers to?punishment-focused as opposed to youth-centric with educational, career readiness and mental health programs.?

“The likelihood of then being involved in the criminal justice system as an adult is higher” as well, he said.?

In addition to detention centers, Kentucky has development centers, which a DJJ spokesperson said is where some youth go for treatment post-adjudication. The state also has group homes and day treatment programs.

Similarly to detention centers, admissions to the development centers fell in 2020 and increased in 2021. Those totals dropped in 2022, as well as totals for Black and white kids. There were also more Black than white females in 2022, as well as more Black males than white.

In 2019, Black youth were 49% of the admissions to development centers. That dropped to 38% in 2020, rose to 47% in 2021 and 60% in 2022.

“We know that traditional detention systems don’t help the kid now. They don’t help the community now because it really actually ferments additional offenses, and it probably is a feeder system for adult crime,” said Brooks.?

State Rep. Keturah Herron, a Louisville Democrat, agreed.?

“We know that detention doesn’t work,” she said. “I just think that … it’s going to be harmful if we in Kentucky move toward this more punitive state, especially if that intervention and prevention piece is not there, as well as those community based services…”?

LaGantta said rhetoric calling youth today more violent doesn’t help with this mindset.?

“When you’re treated like an animal, you’re going to give that,” he told the Lantern.?

Children already struggle to get past a stint in the juvenile justice system, he said.

“They feel like once they make that one mistake,” he said, “it’s over.”?

The ACEs factor?

When thinking about juvenile justice, said Brooks with KYA, one also has to look at causal factors behind lawbreaking behavior. Those often go back to child traumas, or Adverse Childhood Experiences.?

“Juvenile justice issues do not happen in a vacuum. I do not believe that any kid just wakes up today and says ‘I’m going to get in trouble,’” Brooks said. “It does not mean that kids don’t bear some level of accountability. But we know that a lot of the time, traumatic experiences and traumatic environments … tend to contribute to bad, lawbreaking behavior.”?

ACEs refer to traumas or stressors in childhood, such as witnessing violence, abuse or living through a parental incarceration. People who survive ACEs can also then go on to perpetuate them as they grow up in some cases.?

“We know kids who have experienced maltreatment, kids who have experienced poverty, are disproportionately represented in both the child welfare system and the juvenile justice system,” Brooks added.?

And he said: “Kids of color in Kentucky are more likely to experience those kinds of events that are associated with … troubling behavior.”?

Additionally, Herron, the Louisville legislator, said over-policing in Black communities is also a factor.?

“Especially for our young people, our juveniles, that school to prison pipeline is real for that population,” said Herron.?

“If there is the political will to address disparities, the only viable way to do that is to look upstream,” Brooks said. “If we do not get to the causal factors, the core issues that contribute to illegal behavior then we’re going to continue to see that disparity exist.”

Indeed, youth often come to the system with existing traumas, DiLoreto said.?

“We had funding and they chose to put it elsewhere,” she said. “They’ve chosen to put it in cameras and barbed wire, but they could choose to put it in mental health.”?

LaGantta’s case is a good example. He was in and out of foster homes from the age of five. Custodians beat him.?

Never once, he said, did he have a long term home life in which he felt truly cared for.?

Instead of jail, LaGantta needed someone to check on him, he said. Instead, they called the police.?

“The only time I felt safe,” said LaGantta, “was when I was by myself.” Eventually he ran away, choosing homelessness over abuse.?

Westerfield said there is a need for more awareness of the system’s racial disparities. Additionally, there’s a need for consistent race data collection across agencies.?

“We tend to see that Black and Brown kids get less breaks than white kids,” Westerfield acknowledged.? “Black and Brown kids typically get harsher sentences.”?

The United States Sentencing Commission previously reported that nationally Black males received sentences 19% longer than white males in similar situations from 2012-2016.?

To address that, “We need to identify charging decisions, arresting or detention decisions,” he said. “Where we find racial disparities at those different points of contact, you’ve just got to come up with policies, either within an agency or at the state level through legislation,” to address them. ?

LaGantta, 23, is now a business student at Jefferson Community and Technical College. In his work with Kentucky Youth Advocates, he works to decrease child incarceration and racial disparities within the DJJ system.?

He already sees a few solutions. Community centers need extended hours, he said, so youth can spend recreational time with friends. Too often, he said, youth who don’t have that option end up going to the streets. He wants to use his time with KYA to build connections with them.?

“And if I can help change one of their lives,” he said, “I have accomplished everything I’ve been fighting for.”?

Reporter Liam Niemeyer contributed to this report.?

(Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT — Republican lawmakers on Thursday called for a “change in leadership” in response to violence and inadequate care in Kentucky’s juvenile detention facilities.?

House Majority Whip Jason Nemes, R-Louisville, called for “an outside trustee” to manage the department and said a legislative work group has asked state Auditor Mike Harmon for a full performance audit.?

“The people of Kentucky have lost confidence in the folks that are running the Department of Juvenile Justice,” Nemes said.?

While the General Assembly has been in recess, a group of legislators has been gathering information on the Department of Juvenile Justice to make recommendations. In recent months, reports of violence have made headlines, such as a riot in Adair County in which a girl in state custody was allegedly sexually assaulted. Last week, two employees at the youth detention center in Warren County were attacked, media reports say.?

Later Thursday, Gov. Andy Beshear defended DJJ Commissioner Vicki Reed. He said Reed is invested in addressing the department’s issues and that is what he wants in a commissioner.

In a Thursday news conference, co-chair of the work group, Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, called for a “change in leadership with DJJ.” He said the department’s current culture includes lack of communication and self-preservation.?

When asked to clarify about his position on Justice and Public Safety Cabinet Secretary Kerry Harvey’s leadership, Carroll said that he was not calling for his resignation and added that the long-term “breakdown in leadership” was from positions beneath Harvey.?

After the press conference, a Kentucky Lantern reporter asked Carroll about DJJ Commissioner Reed’s leadership. He said she has not acted sufficiently to resolve recent issues though he does believe she cares about the children the department works with. The department changed within the time that she was away from it, he added. Before her appointment, Reed last worked in Juvenile Justice as the director of the Division of Classification and Placement Services until 2004.

“I think there’s probably some disconnect there, but within top leadership within DJJ… we feel like the governor really needs to take a close look at that and especially at the branch where these facilities fall under,” Carroll said.?

Harvey and Reed were appointed by Gov. Andy Beshear in August 2021. The governor said Thursday afternoon that Reed comes from the private sector working in non-profits outside the system though she did work for the department in the past.?

“My goal is to get this fixed, and I want somebody who is completely invested in getting it fixed. … What I have seen of our current commissioner is she wants to make these changes,” Beshear said. “She wants to make these facilities safe. And we’re going to ensure that the resources and the opportunities are there.”

Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, R-??Greensburg, who sponsored a resolution convening the work group, said Thursday that lawmakers have welcomed a few Beshear administration changes, such as separating juveniles by gender and grading ?facilities by their ability to hold high-level detainees. However, the workgroup calls for further steps to reform the department.?

“In the absence of leadership, a problem becomes a crisis,” Givens said.?

Though only the Senate adopted Givens’ resolution during the first week of January, the bipartisan work group wanted to avoid a delay in responding to the crisis, the senator said. Therefore, it met to identify immediate and long-term ways to change the culture within DJJ.?

The group met two days each week, Carroll said. Cooperation from the executive branch was good though it was “conditional at times.” The group had access to people who would normally not feel comfortable being on camera and gained some information anonymously through phone calls and contacts with legislators, he added.??

On access to officials within his administration, Beshear said that while the workgroup was not legally authorized, members of his administration still worked with it. He said the group met behind closed doors without public access. The group at first stopped Executive Cabinet Secretary and State Budget Director John Hicks from coming to a meeting, though he eventually met with it Thursday.

“What it meant is we lost out on an opportunity to brief legislators, which we were going to about that last round of changes before we made them,” Beshear said. “So listen, we want to cooperate. We’re willing to cooperate. We have sent our very top officials that can get things done over to have very candid conversations, but this ought to be done in the open. It ought to be done open to the press and the public.

As for an outside audit, Beshear said he was in favor of that if it was done in a non-political way and if the actions are implemented from the review.

Rep. Kevin Bratcher, R-Louisville, another co-chair, said the working group met with Louisville Mayor Craig Greenberg recently and “we came out of that meeting all on board that Louisville is going to get a detention center and a good one.” More details are to come, the representative said.?

The work group’s final meeting was scheduled for Thursday. Lawmakers return to Frankfort next week.?

Senate Minority Floor Leader Gerald Neal, D-Louisville, said after the press conference that he was not sure if leadership changes are needed in DJJ and that the whole issue is complex. He cautioned his colleagues as they moved through the process.??

“You have to come together with the right kind of expertise with assessments about how you do this stuff,” Neal said.?

Among new changes in DJJ, Beshear announced Thursday that Kentucky State Police would be placed in the high-level security detention centers— Adair, Warren and Fayette counties— and that his administration will ask lawmakers to support changes made within the department.

To improve the state’s juvenile justice system modifying statues and appropriating funds are needed, Hicks said. The work group asked the executive branch what it needs, he added. On the funding side, the answer includes $3.2 million in the next fiscal year operating budget to sustain starting pay of $50,000 annually for youth detention workers, $5.8 million to expand the DJJ’s transportation system, and $11.6 million to hire additional staff. Dollars are also needed to improve and ensure safety at existing facilities, like $4.5 million for physical upgrades to the Jefferson County youth detention center, which is set to re-open after it was closed in November.

In a memo to reporters, the work group released its recommendations and divided them into met and unmet:?

Met

• Provide immediate, intermediate and long term resources or statutory changes needed. Provided by Secretary Harvey.
• Use every resource at your disposal to restore safety, order, structure, and discipline to detention facilities. Called up Kentucky State Police 24/7 365 until order is restored.
• Provide specific gaps in the law you’ve identified as needing reform to allow for a healthy department that protects both youth and staff.
• The only statutory changes formally requested from the Justice and Public Safety: Would allow juveniles charged with an offense that would be illegal if committed by an adult to be released on bail in the same way an adult would Low-level or status offenders— those committing an offense that for a child is criminal but not for an adult— or a misdemeanor would not go to a detention facility, requiring a judge to order an alternative like home incarceration.
• Trauma care is available to detention facility employees. State employees have mental health coverage through the KY Employee Assistance Program.

Unmet

• Unfettered access to cabinet and department officials and rank and file employees free of intimidation from Governor’s Office officials.
• Explain the failure to further implement the 2017 KY Department of Juvenile Justice Conditions of Confinement Assessment Summary of Key Findings and Recommendations by the Center for Children’s Law and Policy.
• Develop and maintain a tracking notification system to automatically notify necessary and authorized parties of detained youth’s movement.
• Consider replacing key DJJ leadership and conduct a nationwide search for qualified applicants.
• Enter into and maintain a contract with Our Lady of Peace hospital which provides comprehensive mental health treatment.
• Open inspection by an independent party of the detention facilities.
• Appoint an outside trustee as a receiver to manage the overhaul of DJJ.

Andy Beshear (Photo for Kentucky Lantern by Michael Clubb)

Gov. Andy Beshear has announced an increase in starting pay for staff in youth detention centers and unveiled a proposal to build two new facilities to house juveniles.

Those and other changes outlined by Beshear on Thursday come amid criticism from Republican lawmakers about the administration’s handling of unsafe and sometimes violent conditions in the understaffed state-run facilities, including a riot at a facility in Adair County.?

The governor said the starting salary for youth workers in detention centers would be $50,000 annually.??

In a press release last month, the Governor’s Office said the Department of Juvenile Justice was seeking to fill more than 105 full-time positions across the state’s eight juvenile detention centers. Youth worker hourly pay then started at $21.45 and, with shift hourly premium, employees could earn upwards of $25.71 an hour.?

The steps the governor described Thursday in his weekly update come on the heels of other recent initiatives his administration has announced, including housing only female-juveniles in the Campbell County facility, separating male juveniles by level of offense, and expanding the DJJ’s transportation branch to aid law enforcement officials.?

Changes in the Department of Juvenile Justice will focus on enhancing the security of youth detention facilities through upgrades and acquiring new equipment and training personnel.?

The new steps are:?

• Raising starting salary of DJJ youth workers in detention centers to $50,000 annually.
• Youth workers in detention centers will be reclassified as correctional officers.
• Enhancing onsite security at facilities through upgrades and improvements.?
• Making defensive equipment available to DJJ workers.
• Procuring equipment and training personnel to prevent the introduction of contraband into facilities.
• Making or requesting legislative, regulatory and policy changes designed to enhance safety and security of facilities.
• Rationalizing the detention footprint by initiating the process to construct two new, state of the art facilities.

The governor also said that former Kentucky Department of Corrections Warden Larry Chandler has been hired to be the DJJ’s director of security.?

Juvenile justice system policy is expected to be a topic during this year’s General Assembly. During their first week in January, the Senate adopted 34-0 a concurrent resolution to establish a work group that would gather information about Kentucky’s current system and make policy recommendations by Feb. 7.?

After the most recent State of the Commonwealth address, House Speaker David Osborne and Senate President Robert Stivers said members of their chambers were working on legislation to address juvenile justice in the state.

(Photo by Getty Images)

FRANKFORT —?Democrats pushed back against Republican criticism of the Beshear administration as the state Senate on Friday unanimously approved creation of a workgroup to investigate violence and dangerous working conditions in Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers.

Senate President Pro Tem David Givens, sponsor of the resolution to create the 12-member workgroup, said the detention system, which he has been told houses fewer than 150 juveniles, is in “operational breakdown.”

“Someone else is going to have to be watchdogging what’s going on here,” Givens, R-Greensburg, told the Senate.

Sen. Reggie Thomas, D-Lexington, countered that the legislature had failed to adequately fund the juvenile system, saying that until 15 months ago starting pay for employees in juvenile facilities was $14.22 an hour. The administration has increased the starting wage to $22.10 in an attempt to address the understaffing, said Thomas..

Thomas also said the numbers of juveniles in detention declined sharply during the pandemic with a corresponding decline in staff. When the number of offenders increased as the pandemic eased, staffing did not keep up, Thomas said..

Senators from both parties said the population of detained juveniles is more violent than in the past. Gov. Andy Beshear also has said the population of juvenile detainees is at its most violent ever.

Thomas said the state is dealing with “a different kind of offender than four years ago,” including many with ties to gangs.

?Givens’ resolution calls for the workgroup to make ?recommendations to the legislature by Feb. 7.

Among the questions the group would answer is whether the Department of Juvenile Justice should be placed under the state Department of Corrections and whether the state should operate a juvenile detention facility in Louisville.?

The resolution cites violence and riots at state-run facilities for juveniles in McCracken, Warren and Adair counties.?

“We not only are having a crisis in our juvenile detention facilities across the commonwealth but we as policymakers can’t seem to get the information about what’s going on,” Givens told fellow senators on Thursday.?

Senate Resolution 31 calls for an “immediate response legislative work group” to be created with members of the Senate and House of Representatives and up to four additional non-voting members appointed by each chamber.

The resolution says Louisville Metro closed its juvenile detention facility in 2020 as a result of budget cuts and began housing its juvenile offenders at an ill-equipped facility in suburban Jefferson County run by the state Department of Juvenile Justice. That facility in Lyndon was closed in November after rioting, employee injuries, fires and the escape of a juvenile, the resolution says.

The motion comes after another Sen. John Schickel, R-Union, said on the floor Wednesday that he wrote a letter to Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear about concerns with the state’s juvenile justice system and Beshear administration reform responses.

Schickel said the administration’s changes are creating a transportation burden. Law enforcement told him a male juvenile was taken into custody in Northern Kentucky and transported overnight to a Boyd County juvenile detention facility, a two and a half hour drive. Schickel said the juvenile was transported again to northern Kentucky to appear in court.

“This is just an unworkable situation and it is a breach of the agreement that was made 20 years ago that in exchange for counties closing down their facilities, the state would have a detention facility in every region of our state,” Schickel ?said.??

Previously, Beshear announced that a Campbell County facility would be converted to house only females. The governor told reporters Thursday that a state-controlled transportation system is needed for juveniles to be housed in facilities across the state by their level of charges and separated by gender.?

Beshear told reporters Thursday that he read Schickel’s letter and added that major changes must be made to the state’s juvenile justice system. The administration created a female-only facility and plans to house juveniles by level of offense, rather than closest to their home. ?Beshear said ?creating a transportation system within the Department of Juvenile Justice was discussed as part of those changes. He previously announced that juveniles could be housed separately before they appear in a court hearing, which typically takes 48 hours. After they are charged, they would then be transported to the appropriate facility.?

“I don’t want law enforcement to have to drive two and a half hours,” the governor said. “But in this instance, if it meant that all of those girls are better protected for the moment, you know that’s something that I think that we can work with and address, but I still fully support creating the female-only juvenile justice center.”?

On the floor Friday, Thomas said the recent changes by the administration are temporary “until we get a handle on it.”

In his Wednesday State of the Commonwealth Address, Beshear said his administration will ask the General Assembly to support higher salaries for employees of the juvenile justice system, upgrades to facilities and changes to state laws for reform. On Thursday, he said that it “would be better” if a male-only facility were in northern Kentucky and that was something he was willing to consider.?

After the address, both Republican House Speaker David Osborne and Senate President Robert Stivers told reporters members of their chambers were working on legislation to address Kentucky’s juvenile justice system.?

Osborne noted that the legislature approved pay raises in the most recent budget, but that a study from the Personnel Cabinet due in 2021 would give lawmakers insight on how to use funds in the future.?

“There is a need for pay increases in juvenile justice and corrections, in lots of different areas,” he said. “But I think that you’d have to look at it in its entirety as opposed to trying to piecemeal it together and make some common sense out of it.”?

Lantern editor Jamie Lucke contributed to this article.

Sen. Danny Carroll's bill seeks to address problems in Kentucky's juvenile detention system. (Photo by Getty Images)

After lawmakers questioned administration officials about outbreaks of violence in the state’s understaffed juvenile detention centers Thursday, Senate Judiciary Chairman Whitney Westerfield said he welcomed administration actions but “a lot of it comes a little too late.”

In recent weeks, law enforcement responded to a riot at a juvenile detention center in Adair County amid news reports that staffing shortages are endangering employees and residents at juvenile facilities across the state. Because of the low staffing, juveniles are sometimes confined in lockdown for long periods, causing a rise in tensions that erupt in violence.?

Gov. Andy Beshear recently announced steps aimed at separating violent offenders from juveniles who are being detained for nonviolent status offenses such as truancy by housing them in different locations and also separating juveniles by gender.?

Westerfield, R-Crofton, told reporters after the meeting that some root causes he sees are inadequate staff, low pay and Justice and Public Safety Cabinet officials “not coming to us and telling us what they need” or making a budget request to remedy the problems.

“We aren’t giving these people what they need to do their job well and to recruit enough people to get in to do it,” Westerfield said.?

As for the upcoming legislative session, which begins in January, Westerfield said he is eager to see where the state goes with preventing similar situations down the road, such as how money is spent and changing policy within the Department of Juvenile Justice, such as status offenders not being in juvenile facilities at all. Status offenses would not be crimes if committed by adults.

Vicki Reed, commissioner of the Department of Juvenile Justice, and? Kerry Harvey, secretary of the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, appeared before the Interim Joint Committee on Judiciary on Thursday. Beshear appointed Reed and Harvey to their roles in August of last year.?

Joint committee meeting

According to Reed, 48% of the juveniles in the male detention population are in the system for offenses such as capital murder and class A, B and C felonies. She added that 27% have Class D felonies and another 25% have misdemeanor charges or status offenses, which are offenses because of their age.?

For the female juvenile population, Reed said the state typically has fewer than 20 across the state and they generally have lower level offenses.?

Employees’ work “can be very dangerous and it can also be very rewarding,” Reed said, as some lives are turned around. The time frame in which a juvenile can stay in a detention center can vary because of their case disposition, making it difficult to “meaningfully engage in a full range of programs,” Reed said. She added that youths in the detained population increasingly have gang affiliations and take part in violent behavior in detention facilities that target staff and other detained youth.?

“Detention staff have to be able to handle a wide variety of youth and situations: Youth who are actively suicidal, pregnant, autistic, or have medical issues including diabetes, cancer, epilepsy or heart conditions,” the commissioner said.?

Harvey said hiring and retaining adequate staff has been an issue for DJJ and the Department of Corrections since he started in his role. Juvenile justice youth workers have had three pay increases in the last year, he added. Initially, the pay was around $14.42 an hour for an entry-level worker.?

According to a press release from the Governor’s Office, DJJ is seeking to fill more than 105 full-time positions across the state’s eight juvenile detention centers. Youth worker hourly pay now starts at $21.45, and with shift hourly premium, employees can earn upwards of $25.71 an hour.?

Harvey cited an escalation in the level of violence in the detained youth population. He said that he sees more youth who have committed violent crimes, are possibly being processed as adults in court and who have a severe mental illness.?

“I can tell you — and if we have instances where our staff has behaved inappropriately … there needs to be accountability — but when we are putting sick children in juvenile detention facilities, the outcome’s not going be good, because it’s a tragedy for that child and it’s a burden that our staff is not well-equipped to bear,” Harvey said.?

Changes to system

Last month, Kentucky State Police said troopers and other local law enforcement officers responded to a call about a riot at the Adair Regional Detention Center, a maximum security juvenile detention center. Several staff and juveniles were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment. The Lexington Herald-Leader reported that an alleged sexual assault occurred elsewhere in a female-only wing of the facility during the riot.?

“The initial call was regarding a juvenile who had assaulted a staff member, confiscated the staff member’s keys and released other juveniles from their cells,” a KSP press release said.

Since the Adair County situation,Beshear has announced some efforts for juvenile justice reform in Kentucky which include transitioning a juvenile justice facility in Newport to a female-only facility for ages 11 to 18 and that male juveniles ages 14 and older will be housed by level of offense instead of in the closest facility.?

On Thursday, Beshear further clarified the locations for housing male juveniles by level of offense. Starting next year, those with Class A, B or C felonies will be housed at higher-level security juvenile detention centers in Adair, Fayette and Warren counties. Those with Class D felonies or lesser offenses will be in Boyd, Breathitt, Jefferson and McCracken counties.?

Male juveniles 14 or older with Class D felonies that involve unusual violence could be assigned to a high-security facility. Those with lesser offenses but engage in violent or disruptive behavior while detained could also be moved to a high-security facility.?

The governor said that nobody wants to have to take these steps, “but we absolutely do have to take them” to bring a higher level of security to the facilities. Additionally, his administration is looking to upgrade the physical security in the juvenile detention centers.?

“Sadly, the DJJ system is just totally different than it was 20 years ago. We have to change for the safety of everybody involved, and these are the most dramatic changes we’ve seen in the DJJ facilities and operations since inception,” Beshear said. “I hope that there is a future and a near future where so much of our violent crime is not being committed by juveniles, but right now it is. It is. And with that being the case, we need and must make these changes.”

While taking questions from reporters, the governor said he discussed some steps in an initial briefing with the General Assembly and that his administration looks forward to input from legislators.?

What’s next

Earlier this week, the Lexington Herald-Leader reported that monthly reports from facility superintendents alerted Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice officials that facilities did not have enough employees to maintain control or follow staffing requirements mandated by the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.?

The Adair County Community Voice published a story Wednesday with accounts and documents from nurses who left their jobs at the Adair County Detention Center because “they were unable to resolve what they considered mistreatment of juveniles and the inability to do their jobs responsibly.”

Terry Brooks, executive director of Kentucky Youth Advocates, said in an interview with the Kentucky Lantern that the state’s juvenile justice system is “beyond a crisis and getting worse.” Some areas that have been an issue for a while include workforce retention and recruitment, educational programming in facilities, behavioral and mental health support and more.?

Another area of concern, Brooks said, is that lawmakers once had a general consensus on the topic of juvenile justice, but now there is more of a divide. When it comes to addressing Kentucky’s juvenile justice system, he said it is a balancing act.?

Two critical moments for juvenile justice policy on the horizon are the 2023 gubernatorial election and revisiting the state’s budget in 2024, Brooks said.?

“We’ve got to take time to figure out what questions we need to be asking and what are potential solutions,” Brooks said.?