KY lawmakers press for answers on mistreatment of youths in juvenile detention centers
State officials were questioned Thursday about the mistreatment of youths housed by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice following a series of stories last month in the Lexington Herald-Leader.
Members of the legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on the Judiciary asked about excessive use of force by staff during restraints, back-to-back riots last year at the DJJ facility in Paducah and racial slurs used on a Black teenager at the Lexington facility, among other incidents reported in the stories.
Lawmakers told leaders at the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet they want more transparency about what happens inside the facilities where roughly 235 juveniles are held, either awaiting court proceedings or serving sentences.
“There were some really disturbing pieces that we read through stories that came out, things that were going on in our juvenile detention centers,” said House Judiciary Chairman C. Ed Massey, R-Hebron.
“My concern as chairman, candidly, is that I find out about these things through media attention, not through any reports that I receive internally or from your predecessors,” Massey told Justice Secretary Kerry Harvey and Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed, both of whom took their jobs this year. “That’s very concerning to me.”
In response to questions, Reed said she didn’t know if DJJ has a policy about informing youths’ parents or their attorneys after an incident of excessive use of force. The Herald-Leader series quoted a Lexington family that said it was never told about one such incident involving their loved one for which a DJJ employee was suspended.
In their testimony, Harvey and Reed — both of whom declined to be interviewed by the Herald-Leader for its series — said Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration is dedicated to the safety of youths housed by DJJ and to its nearly 1,000 employees.
Allegations of mistreatment are investigated, and if substantiated, appropriate discipline is handed down, ranging from reprimands and additional training to suspension or firing, they said. Recruiting and retaining enough staff is a constant problem, they added.
“We firmly believe that one case of mistreatment is one too many,” Harvey told the committee, “and we will hold leadership and staff accountable for providing safe and appropriate care for the kids under DJJ authority.”
But the lawmakers followed with questions about specific incidents mentioned in the Herald-Leader stories, including a youth worker who used repeated racial slurs on a Black teenager last year at the Fayette Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Lexington while dropping him to the floor during a restraint.
The youth worker was suspended for 12 days, state records show.
Senate Judiciary Chairman Whitney Westerfield, R-Crofton, asked if there is a written policy against using racial slurs at DJJ.
“Absolutely,” Reed said. “And I will point out that the incident that was in the newspaper — not that it makes it any better — but it was a Black staff who —”
“Yeah, that does not make it any better,” Westerfield said.
“No, it does not, I completely agree,” Reed said.
The Justice Cabinet officials said DJJ does not automatically fire employees after a single substantiated case of excessive use of force. Details matter, they said.
Instinctively planting your open hand on a youth’s chest to ward off an attack, which is not an approved Aikido Control Technique, can count as excessive use of force, they said, but it’s not the same thing as a more violent incident that injures a youth. The cabinet also considers how long an employee has worked for DJJ and if he has previous substantiated incidents on his record.
All substantiated excessive use of force incidents are reported to local law enforcement for further review and possible prosecution, although criminal charges are rare in such cases, they said.
Reed challenged the accuracy of one part of the Herald-Leader series.
The newspaper reported that in two separate incidents earlier this year, male youth workers observed nude girls in the showers despite the girls’ protests and in violation of policy, according to reports written by the Justice Cabinet’s Internal Investigations Branch. Same-sex staff are supposed to assist youths with shower time when supervision is necessary.
Investigators substantiated both incidents as “does not provide appropriate supervision” after reviewing security videos of the incidents and conducting interviews with all involved, according to their reports, which the Herald-Leader obtained through the Open Records Act.
One of the male youth workers was allowed to resign over his incident “with prejudice” because “you knew or should have known that the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, Internal Investigation Branch was conducting an investigation relative to your misconduct, which has been substantiated,” DJJ told him in a hand-delivered letter on May 4, according to his personnel file.
The other male youth worker remained on the job as of August, although he received a “verbal warning,” according to state records.
But Reed told lawmakers Thursday that a review of video from the shower incidents following the Herald-Leader series showed that the male youth workers who were present did not see the girls’ bodies while they were nude.
“At no point in time did the staff see the girls when they were naked. It didn’t happen,” Reed said.
