Why a Kentucky jail has been ordered closed by the Department of Corrections
The Bell County Detention Center has been closed because of safety violations, the Kentucky Department of Corrections said Friday.
The department said in a news release that it had ordered the jail closed and notified jail officials that “the facility must be completely evacuated” by 5 p.m. Wednesday.
The smoke evacuation system, which clears smoke from the facility if a fire occurs and is “a critical life safety component of detention facilities,” isn’t working, and the jail has gone months without fixing it, according to the corrections department.
“Without a properly functioning smoke evacuation system, inmate living areas are unprotected in the event of a fire,” the release stated.
As of Jan. 23, the Bell County Detention Center had 132 inmates, according to corrections department data. The jail has 59 beds.
The corrections department issued an order Oct. 2 stating that the jail would have close by Dec. 1. Then “when jail officials made minimal progress correcting the violations,” the department gave the Pineville facility an extension until Jan. 30, the release stated.
The system is still not functioning, the corrections department said.
“The Department of Corrections gave Bell County officials ample opportunity to correct this situation and repair or replace the smoke evacuation system,” Corrections Commissioner Kathleen Kenney said in the release. “Our safety concerns were not addressed, which led us to close the jail.”
State law gives the Kentucky Department of Corrections the authority close jails because of health and safety violations if it is necessary to protect people and property.
The department ordered the Estill County jail closed in 2017 because its sprinkler system and the system to clear smoke from the jail had not worked since the previous year.
