Judge rules that watchdog agency can continue investigation at KY juvenile jail
AI-generated summary reviewed by our newsroom.
- Judge orders DJJ to provide records to Protection and Advocacy about two abuse claims.
- Judge cited agency’s watchdog role and youths' disabilities as reasons to access records.
- Court granted limited injunction for two teens; statewide relief remains pending.
A federal judge has ordered the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice to provide independent state watchdogs with records about alleged abuse in one of its juvenile detention centers.
U.S. District Judge Gregory Van Tatenhove said the Kentucky Protection and Advocacy Services Division is entitled to records about incidents last year involving two teens allegedly harmed by the staff at the Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Columbia.
Youths told Protection and Advocacy staff who toured the facility last October that one of them was pepper sprayed in the back of the head by guards while walking away from a fight, and another was forced to wait two days for medical treatment after a fight left him with broken bones in his arm and wrist.
However, the Department of Juvenile Justice refused to provide records about those incidents to Protection and Advocacy staff unless the youths signed paperwork authorizing the records’ release.
Protection and Advocacy sued on Nov. 4 in U.S. District Court in Frankfort, saying it should not need signed paperwork to get access to records from the juvenile detention center.
The watchdog agency argued that it has a congressionally mandated role protecting youths in state custody; that the two 16-year-olds in question have “mental health disabilities,” so they might not be able to give consent; and the teens depend on the Department of Juvenile Justice for their safety, so they might not feel free to ask for an outside investigation into how well they’re treated.
“If I were a young person in that situation, you know, it would give me pause,” Jeff Edwards, the director of Protection and Advocacy, told the Herald-Leader on Monday. “I wouldn’t want to alienate the people that are responsible for me.”
Van Tatenhove issued a preliminary injunction ruling for Protection and Advocacy for the limited purpose of granting it the records it wants on the two teens at the Adair County facility.
The judge did not grant the watchdog agency a permanent injunction that would give it free access to records needed for any future investigations of juvenile justice facilities across the state. That matter remains to be resolved in the lawsuit.
However, the judge said, Protection and Advocacy “has demonstrated a likelihood of success on the merits.”
As for the Department of Juvenile Justice’s stated privacy concerns about the records, the judge said, Protection and Advocacy is bound by the same confidentiality rules, so that is not a factor.
Edwards said his agency is discussing its next steps.
“We are evaluating what all the options are and what’s going to be best for children that DJJ is responsible for,” Edwards said.
The Department of Juvenile Justice will comply with the court order, said spokeswoman Morgan Hall.
“As previously stated, this lawsuit could have been avoided had Protection and Advocacy provided releases signed by the respective juveniles authorizing production of youth records,” Hall added. “This is a standard process which the Department of Public Advocacy, which P&A is housed under, has repeatedly complied with in the past.”
The U.S. Department of Justice also is investigating Kentucky’s juvenile detention facilities for possible civil rights violations following years of critical news stories, a scathing state audit and multiple lawsuits filed by former residents and employees alleging mistreatment of those held in state custody.
Most recently, the Herald-Leader has reported that the juvenile detention centers continue to struggle with a lack of adequate staffing and that juvenile detention center staff routinely skip their mandatory safety checks on youths in their cells and then falsify observation logs to cover it up.
