Attack at KY juvenile facility in Adair only the latest problem for state agency
The Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet has confirmed a violent attack at the Adair Youth Development Center in Columbia, the latest safety problem for the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice.
On Friday, a youth who was convicted of 1st degree strangulation, with a pending murder charge, attacked a staff member at the detention facility, said cabinet spokeswoman Morgan Hall.
During the attack, a second youth — this one convicted of first-degree robbery — grabbed the staff member’s keys and radio, Hall said. Those two youths then attacked a third youth in a living unit across the hall, causing injuries that later required on-site medical treatment, she said.
“Staff were able to get the situation under control without contacting law enforcement,” Hall said.
Late Sunday, the youth with the strangulation conviction made threats against a staff member, leading to a brief struggle as the youth attempted to take the staff member’s keys, Hall said. But the youth was unsuccessful, and staff were able to get the youth into his cell without further incident, she said.
The Department of Juvenile Justice has struggled with inadequate staffing and repeated loss of control at its detention centers for youths around the state.
In August, there was what DJJ officials described in internal documents as “a major riot” at the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Bowling Green. A group of up to 10 youths caused “a significant amount of damage to the facility” during a rampage. The youths climbed into the facility’s ceilings for much of that episode.
“The majority of the units are flooded and most ceiling tiles destroyed,” Bryan Bacon, a DJJ facility regional administrator, wrote to his superiors hours after the Warren incident. “Likely the majority if not all of the youth (were) involved in the ceiling incident.”
Bacon added that “police were not called,” following the instructions of DJJ supervisors to facility staff.
Also that month, one teen set fires in the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center near Louisville and another used the confusion as his opportunity to escape, prompting a police response to the facility.
Internal documents show the Jefferson facility was badly under-staffed, with 13 front-line workers on the payroll instead of the 29 considered necessary for safety. Stronger cell doors have been ordered for the facility to prevent youths from “kicking through” them, documents show.
“First Jefferson doors weren’t holding and now ceilings aren’t secure,” DJJ Commissioner Vicki Reed wrote in an Aug. 20 email to her staff as the recent incidents piled up. “And why now after all these years?? Buildings are letting us down!! This is an emergency that has to be handled.”
Last year, the Herald-Leader published a series of stories that disclosed serious incidents of physical abuse, inappropriate sexual contact and neglect inside the juvenile detention centers.
One youth worker who quit the Warren Regional Juvenile Detention Center after more than two years inside the facility told the newspaper, “It just felt like it was getting more unsafe and more unsafe and more unsafe.”
This story was originally published September 20, 2022 at 10:07 AM.
