Despite turnover, federal investigation into KY juvenile justice centers continues
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Federal civil rights investigation into KY juvenile detention centers remains active as of August 2025.
- DOJ probe follows audit, lawsuits and news reports about abuse and neglect.
- State officials seek legislative funding for all-girls detention centers and mental health care.
The U.S. Department of Justice is continuing its civil rights investigation into conditions at Kentucky juvenile detention centers, despite massive staff turnover at the federal agency since President Donald Trump took office in January, state officials said Friday.
“It’s ongoing,” Mona Womack, deputy secretary of the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet, told the Herald-Leader after a state legislative hearing at the Capitol Annex.
“We are fully complying with them,” Womack said. “We just completed a document and information request. It remains ongoing.”
State officials have not been given an estimated date for the investigation’s completion, she added.
The Department of Justice has refused to publicly comment on the status of its investigation since December, when it held community forums in Kentucky to hear people speak about problems at the state’s Department of Juvenile Justice.
The probe’s continuation was no sure thing. Under Trump, the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division has lost hundreds of employees to firings, resignations and reassignments to other jobs.
And it has retreated from some of its pending civil rights actions. That includes a federal consent decree aimed at reforming the troubled Louisville Metro Police Department. The agreement came in response to the fatal shooting by Louisville police of Breonna Taylor, a 26-year-old Black woman and emergency room technician, among other police abuses in Kentucky’s largest city.
The Department of Justice announced its Kentucky juvenile justice investigation in May 2024 following several years of reporting by the Lexington Herald-Leader into chronic abuse and neglect in the detention centers; subsequent state legislative oversight hearings and a critical audit by state Auditor Allison Ball’s office; and multiple lawsuits alleging mistreatment filed by youths and former state employees.
Federal and state officials have gone through this procedure before. Kentucky created its Department of Juvenile Justice in the 1990s as part of a consent decree with the Justice Department under President Bill Clinton because of the mistreatment of youths held in state custody.
On Friday, Kentucky Juvenile Justice Commissioner Randy White gave an update on his agency’s progress to the Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee, which has held occasional hearings on the eight juvenile detention centers where 248 youths were held as of this week.
White said the state is expanding the juvenile detention centers in Breathitt, Fayette and McCracken counties and hopes to have two much-needed facilities in Jefferson County within the next two years. The closing of the Louisville Metro Juvenile Detention Center due to budget cuts several years ago put a great strain on the state’s juvenile detention system, particularly the detention center in rural Adair County.
However, White said, he regrets that the legislature so far has failed to fund Gov. Andy Beshear’s requests for two new all-girls juvenile detention centers to help keep youths safely segregated by gender, and a high-acuity mental health facility for youths who need treatment somewhere other than a correctional facility.
The Department of Juvenile Justice has been forced to become the “custodian of last resort” for youths with mental illness who can’t find a bed in a private treatment facility because of their potential for aggressive behavior, White said, but the detention centers aren’t properly equipped to help them.
The sponsor of past bills that would have funded those projects, Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, told his colleagues they need to address the mental health needs of youths in state custody and provide more safe places for girls in detention.
“Please understand that we are still at risk of another consent decree from DOJ,” Carroll said to other members of the oversight committee on Friday.
“We have gotten somewhat of a reprieve because they’ve had some turnover in staff, the staff that was actually reviewing our issues in our state, so that’s kind of been put back,” Carroll said. “We need to act on this before it gets to that point, and the female issues, the mental health issues, those are the two critical issues remaining.”
