KY officials admit failures after juvenile justice centers see fires, riots, escapes

State officials on Thursday acknowledged serious errors were made over the summer inside the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center in suburban Louisville that allowed youths to smuggle in dangerous contraband, set fires and escape.

And a review of recent internal reports by the Herald-Leader shows the problems are not limited to one troubled center. There have been about two dozen substantiated cases at juvenile justice facilities across the state of drug use, inappropriate use of force, poor supervision and other problems in the past 18 months, according to reports.

“We understand we have significant issues. These are longstanding issues,” Justice and Public Safety Secretary Kerry Harvey told a legislative oversight panel Thursday.

The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice is severely under-staffed, making it hard to safely hold youths, and some detention centers have physical vulnerabilities like doors, windows and drop ceilings that are difficult to secure, state officials said.

Those deficiencies contributed to a destructive youth riot at a juvenile detention center in Bowling Green two months ago, they said. Youths at that facility were able to get into the drop ceiling by clawing through the tiles.

At a hearing in Frankfort, lawmakers on the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee asked about a series of at least eight incidents in a one-month period this summer at the Jefferson County facility that included fires, assaults on youth and staff, riots and escapes into the surrounding neighborhood of family homes.

Police and firefighters from the city of Lyndon were called to the chaotic scene of one fire, finding nobody in charge. There was no after-hours list of contacts; nobody on site had the keys to parts of the detention center.

Trying to report abuse

One witness, Michael Ross, a former youth worker supervisor who quit the Jefferson County facility a year ago, told lawmakers he tried to report abuse and neglect of youths while administrators continually ignored problems.

For example, Ross said, when he warned that nobody was conducting the required 15-minute safety checks on youths locked in isolation, a superior told him that he “was just trying to get people in trouble.”

Certain areas inside the Jefferson County facility are not monitored by cameras, Ross added, and the youths know how to override the magnetic security doors by slipping paper between the magnets. When staff leave a room — and there are sometimes only two or three employees in the entire facility, with more than two dozen youths — the youths are free to attack each other or have sex, he said.

“Are these kids safe?” asked state Rep. Jason Nemes, R-Louisville.

“No,” Ross said.

“They’re in our custody, so it’s our responsibility, right?” Nemes asked.

“Yes,” Ross said.

Harvey told lawmakers that he failed to ask for additional money from the state budget earlier this year to physically improve the juvenile detention centers because he did not realize at that time how serious their deficiencies are.

However, the state is trying to raise the pay of youth workers — the front-line security staff — by offering a mix of incentive bonuses based on shifts and locations. In a half-dozen places where the Department of Juvenile Justice is most desperate for employees, including Louisville and Lexington, new youth workers who a year ago were making $14.42 hourly soon could be making $21.45 hourly, Harvey said.

“Now, will all of this work? I don’t know,” Harvey acknowledged. In recent years, some detention centers have lost employees faster than they could hire replacements, he said.

The problems are nothing new, Harvey said. In 2017, Harvey noted, after a 16-year-old girl died alone and unnoticed in an isolation cell at the Lincoln Village Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Hardin County, the Center for Children’s Law and Policy of Washington, D.C. issued a sharply critical report about the shortcomings of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.

Harvey said his cabinet also is reviewing its disciplinary procedure to see if accountability can be tougher after problems are caught.

In the case of the fires set inside the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center this summer, Harvey said, he was frustrated to learn that a youth smuggled a contraband cigarette lighter past the intake process and passed it to another youth, at which point it was used multiple times to start fires over a period of days without the staff going on a search for it. That lighter immediately needed to be found after the first fire, Harvey said.

“Our staff sometimes make mistakes. Sometimes they make big mistakes,” he said.

The Justice Cabinet is also trying to limit the number of youths held at the Jefferson County facility so that it does not have more people than its staff and building can handle, Harvey said. There were about a dozen youths housed there Thursday, he said.

Sex, drugs and violence

The Herald-Leader has obtained reports showing about two dozen substantiated cases of abuse or neglect in 10 of the state’s juvenile detention facilities in the past 18 months, involving 30 employees, as determined by the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet’s own internal investigators.

The reports include incidents of inappropriate or excessive use of force by staff against youth, such as punches to a youth’s face and headlocks around a youth’s neck; failure to provide adequate supervision; and encouraging youths to engage in illegal activities.

Among the incidents as documented in the reports:

▪ On April 11, 2021, youths were locked in isolation for more than two weeks following a destructive riot at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Bowling Green, violating the usual 48-hour limit on youth isolation. They did not leave their cells for meals, classes or recreation. They were not allowed to speak. One girl reported seeing hallucinations in the darkness, telling investigators, “That room was driving me crazy.” A boy ripped up his clothes. Staff psychologist Kristy Campbell told investigators “she was concerned for the residents’ mental health.”

▪ On June 30 and July 1, 2021, also at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center, a depressed youth tried to hang himself three times over two days by tying his bed linens around his neck. When he told a staff member of his plans, the reply reportedly was, “Oh, well.” Only after the third attempt did staff call a psychologist and place the youth on suicide watch, which had been required after the first attempt. Employees blamed under-staffing at the facility for the oversight. “Everybody’s quitting,” one told investigators.

▪ On July 18, 2021, internal investigators said they discovered from news stories — not because anybody called to tell them — that a 16-year-old homicide suspect had escaped from the Fayette Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Lexington. The boy used a hose to climb an exterior wall, evading the attention of staff who weren’t watching. He later was arrested in Versailles.

▪ On July 25, 2021, during a restraint at the Fayette Regional Juvenile Detention Center, a staff member pushed his forearm back and forth across the back of a boy’s head, forcing the boy’s head into the floor, while he was on top of the boy. This is not the state’s approved procedure for a youth restraint. “That would be me trying to hurt him,” the staff member explained to investigators. “You got to put some man strength to it.”

▪ Earlier this year, youths tested positive for drugs in two facilities, THC/marijuana at Lake Cumberland Youth Development Center in Monticello and opioid suboxone pills at Adair Youth Development Center in Columbia. Youths said staff provided them with the drugs, for example, selling THC-loaded vape pens for $45. Staff who worked at the facilities admitted to using marijuana and suboxone themselves but denied providing drugs.

▪ On July 30, 2022, at the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center, a staff member left a residential unit with the doors unsecured. When staff returned to the unit 11 minutes later, they found two youths — a boy and a girl — having sex in his cell. It was at least the boy’s second sexual encounter at the facility, staff said. Youths told investigators that the facility’s magnetic door locks easily can be bypassed.

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