Superintendent of long-troubled KY juvenile detention center resigns under fire
The longtime superintendent of Kentucky’s most controversial juvenile detention center — the scene of a riot and rape in 2022 — has resigned rather than face disciplinary action, state officials say.
Tonya Rena Burton, 49, managed the combined juvenile detention center and youth development center in Adair County for the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice from 2014 until her final day on Dec. 4, according to state documents obtained by the Lexington Herald-Leader through the Kentucky Open Records Act.
Burton’s resignation was received “with prejudice,” which typically means she cannot be rehired, said Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.
“You resigned when you knew that the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) had a pending discipline against you. Your resignation is hereby accepted with prejudice,” Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White wrote to Burton in a letter dated Nov. 25.
The Justice Cabinet on Thursday would not divulge any information about its investigation into Burton or the discipline that she faced had she stayed on the job.
During a brief text message exchange on Thursday, Burton said she resigned due to “medical issues.”
Burton, who earned nearly $100,000 a year as a facility superintendent, joined the department in 2005 as a social service specialist, according to her personnel file.
The Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center has been the source of many of the worst problems to plague the Department of Juvenile Justice in recent years.
Kentucky’s eight juvenile detention centers are currently under investigation for possible mistreatment of youths by the U.S. Justice Department Civil Rights Division and Kentucky Protection and Advocacy. But of those eight facilities, few if any have generated more headlines than the one in Adair County.
“It’s a hellhole,” Louisville attorney Laura Landenwich said in an interview Thursday. Landenwich is suing the state on behalf of two young women who say they and other girls were abused, neglected, humiliated and deprived of health care, education and basic hygiene while they were held at the Adair facility.
“The kids — every kid I’ve talked to who has been through Adair says it’s awful,” Landenwich said. “Even when they went on to other facilities that had their own problems, they always said Adair was worse.”
Several youths and staff were injured and a teen girl in custody was raped during a riot at the detention center in November 2022.
Documents later obtained by the Herald-Leader showed that insiders warned their superiors of “stomach-turning” abuses inside the detention center in the months leading up to the riot. Employees said youths were mistreated in various ways, often isolated in cells not as punishment but because that made it easier for the thinly stretched staff to maintain control.
Burton vented her own frustration about leaving youths locked in isolation for extended periods, including girls who were pregnant or mentally ill. But Burton said she saw no alternative given a constant shortage of employees to monitor youths gathering in common areas.
“I am doing the best I can right now,” Burton wrote in an Oct. 4, 2022, text to the facility’s medical staff in response to their protests over the prolonged isolation of youths. “I am working insane hours. I am napping a few hours here and there and working all shifts. I want these kids moving.”
One teen girl with failing mental health — a ward of the state — was locked in an isolation cell for much of the summer of 2022, with little effort made to assist her, employees said. The girl ended up naked, covered in her own filth and nearly catatonic, according to employees and documents obtained by the Herald-Leader.
While giving an update on the girl, Burton reported to her superiors in Frankfort: “She stopped taking a shower, cleaning her room and wearing clothes. She stripped down naked and refused to shower or clean her room. This made the room a mess and have an odor.”
“They broke her. It was Adair County that broke her,” Beth Johnson, a former nurse at the Adair facility, told the Herald-Leader months later. “That whole wing smelled so bad, nobody could go down that wing.”
More recently, lawsuits and internal investigative reports have alleged that at the Adair facility:
▪ Staff played a Spanish version of the popular toddler’s song “Baby Shark” over and over on an audio loop while a youth was held in an isolation cell with the door’s window covered.
▪ A correctional officer pepper sprayed a teen boy without any verbal warning, grabbed the boy around his torso and threw him to the ground for refusing to go to his room.
The officer received a written reprimand and retraining.
The boy wasn’t allowed to wash off the burning chemicals for at least 45 minutes. Then he was handed a cup of baby shampoo and a washcloth, which state investigators said “would not be adequate to stop the effects of the OC spray.”
▪ A Kentucky state prison guard who resigned during an internal affairs investigation for taking “inappropriate photographs” of his genitals while on duty and sending them to a woman was rehired 20 days later by the Department of Juvenile Justice and placed at the Adair facility as a correctional officer.
The officer was suspended for two days without pay after security video showed him smashing food items off a table and onto the floor outside of youths’ cell doors and dancing while he taunted the youths by shouting “F--k Market!” and “F--k Victory!”, according to state disciplinary records.
The taunts were references to two Louisville gangs, the Market Street Crips and the Victory Park Crips. The Adair County facility housed teenagers from Louisville.
This story was originally published December 19, 2024 at 3:29 PM.
