Years of failure: What led to a federal investigation of KY’s juvenile justice agency

In our In the Spotlight stories, Herald-Leader journalists bring you continuing coverage of news and events important to our Central Kentucky community. Read more. Story idea? hlcityregion@herald-leader.com.

The Lexington Herald-Leader has reported for the past seven years on the mistreatment of youths held by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.

The department has been saddled with numerous and often-tragic problems, dating back to the administration of former Gov. Matt Bevin and continuing under the watch of Gov. Andy Beshear. Repeated investigations, an occasional audit, outcry from youth advocates and criticism from legislators have done little to erase its repeated missteps and poor decisions.

On Wednesday, the U.S. Department of Justice announced it was launching an investigation of the agency’s eight detention centers around the commonwealth. Federal officials, in a Washington, D.C., statement, said enough is enough.

“Confinement in the juvenile justice system should help children avoid future contact with law enforcement and mature into law-abiding, productive members of society. Too often, juvenile justice facilities break our children, exposing them to dangerous and traumatic conditions,” Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division said.

“We are launching this investigation to ensure that children in Kentucky youth detention facilities are safe from harm, receive adequate mental health care and get appropriate special education services,” Clarke added.

“All children held in the custody of the state deserve safe and humane conditions that can bring about true rehabilitation and reform.”

The Herald-Leader’s reporting by veteran investigative reporter John Cheves reflects the staff’s commitment to protecting Kentucky’s most vulnerable, said Richard Green, the newspaper’s executive editor.

“For years, John has doggedly pursued tips, plowed through thousands of pages of public documents and tapped into sources across the state to reveal the extensive and grim problems inside the Department of Juvenile Justice,” said Green, in the Herald-Leader’s top newsroom position since September 2023.

“It’s not hyperbolic to say I’m convinced the DOJ investigation wouldn’t have happened had it not been for John’s work. And he won’t rest on his laurels. You can expect more revelatory details about how this troubled state agency operates in the days ahead.”

Here is a timeline of some of the newspaper’s bigger stories — and responses from public officials:

▪ Dec. 29, 2017: “Nearly two years after a 16-year-old girl died alone and unnoticed in an isolation cell, state officials acknowledge that the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice still has serious problems to correct at its seven detention centers.

“In a sharply critical inspection report given to the department Oct. 31, the Center for Children’s Law and Policy of Washington, D.C., cited a near-total absence of mental health care in the detention centers; chronic staff shortages and inadequate employee training; a lack of special education for youths with learning disabilities; and few opportunities for residents to file grievances that could reveal abuses.”

▪ Sept. 22, 2021: “The Herald-Leader reviewed thousands of pages of department records, state personnel files, police reports and other documents and identified at least 116 substantiated ‘special incidents’ involving the department’s employees from February 2018 to May 2021.

“The majority of these incidents involved youth workers — the title the department gives to security guards — using force on juveniles that was determined to be excessive by the agency’s Internal Investigations Branch. ...

“’The way I was trained to write reports, they never wanted you to use direct words like “hit” or “struck,” or “push” or “shove,”’ youth worker Jezreel Bell told the Herald-Leader on his last day on the job in early September.

“Bell quit after serving as a youth worker for more than two years.

“’You never “pushed somebody down,” you “assisted them to the floor,”’ he explained.”

▪ Oct. 7, 2021: “State officials were questioned Thursday about the mistreatment of youths housed by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice following a series of stories last month in the Lexington Herald-Leader.

“Members of the legislature’s Interim Joint Committee on the Judiciary asked about excessive use of force by staff during restraints, back-to-back riots last year at the DJJ facility in Paducah and racial slurs used on a Black teenager at the Lexington facility, among other incidents reported in the stories.”

▪ Dec. 7, 2021: “The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice is temporarily reassigning different kinds of employees to serve inside its detention facilities as youth workers, who ended November with a nearly one-in-three job vacancy rate.”

▪ Oct. 13, 2022: “State officials on Thursday acknowledged serious errors were made over the summer inside the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center in suburban Louisville that allowed youths to smuggle in dangerous contraband, set fires and escape.

“And a review of recent internal reports by the Herald-Leader shows the problems are not limited to one troubled center. There have been about two dozen substantiated cases at juvenile justice facilities across the state of drug use, inappropriate use of force, poor supervision and other problems in the past 18 months, according to reports.”

▪ Nov. 14, 2022: “Kentucky State Police are investigating the alleged sexual assault of a youth inside a females-only unit in the juvenile detention center where a riot took place late Friday, state officials have confirmed.

“State and local police were needed to restore order inside the Adair Regional Detention Center, a maximum security facility in Columbia, after a youth ‘assaulted a staff member, confiscated the staff member’s keys and released other juveniles from their cells,’ according to state police. Those injured were taken to a hospital.”

▪ Dec. 8, 2022: “Lexington police say they are investigating a youth worker who quit the Fayette Regional Juvenile Detention Center this year after officials questioned his text messaging with a girl who was in custody.

“Three years earlier, the same man was suspended from his job at the facility for telling a girl in custody that he would like to buy her a drink when she was released, according to state records.”

▪ Dec. 13, 2022: “The people who run Kentucky’s overwhelmed juvenile detention facilities spent the year 2022 all but begging their bosses in Frankfort for help, even before a series of dangerous attacks and riots — and the sexual assault of a teen girl during a riot at the Adair County facility — made headlines this fall.

“In monthly reports from around the state, obtained by the Herald-Leader, facility superintendents told senior officials at the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice that they had nowhere near enough employees to keep control of their facilities or comply with the staffing requirements of the federal Prison Rape Elimination Act.”

▪ Dec. 15, 2022: “Lawmakers on Thursday said they’re losing confidence in Gov. Andy Beshear’s ability to reform Kentucky’s long-troubled Department of Juvenile Justice following still more disclosures of assaults and riots inside its detention facilities.

“’I think we have fallen so far behind and we’re seeing major, severe incidents occur now,’ Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Benton, said at a hearing of the Interim Joint Committee on the Judiciary. ‘The system doesn’t work, it’s broken. It’s completely broken.’”

▪ Jan. 19, 2023: “Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday said he plans to spend tens of millions of dollars raising the pay of youth workers at the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, where under-staffed juvenile detention centers have been plagued by riots, assaults and escapes.

“At a news conference, Beshear said he will raise the starting salary for youth workers in detention centers to $50,000 a year, which would be a $10,000 to $15,000 increase from current levels.”

▪ Jan. 23, 2023: “In the months leading up to the riot and sexual assault of a teenage girl at the Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center last November, employees warned that youths were being mistreated in various ways, often isolated in cells not as punishment but because that made it easier for the thinly stretched staff to keep control.

“A grim picture emerges of life inside the facility run by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice in Adair County based on interviews with four former employees and internal documents obtained by the Herald-Leader.

“’I have witnessed abuse and neglect on a stomach-turning scale,’ nurse Joanne Alvarado wrote in her Aug. 1 letter resigning from the facility.”

▪ Feb. 2, 2023: “An independent party should be allowed to inspect Kentucky’s violence-plagued juvenile detention centers and speak freely with the staff and youths, a panel of lawmakers said Thursday.

“The legislature’s Juvenile Justice Work Group, which has met in recent weeks, announced recommendations at a Capitol news conference. Among them, it called for leadership changes at the state Department of Juvenile Justice and an audit of the agency.”

▪ Feb. 3, 2023: “Former nurses at the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice say they suffered whistle-blower retaliation for reporting the ‘inhumane and dangerous’ mistreatment of youths last year.

“In a lawsuit filed this week in Franklin Circuit Court, Nina Burton and Joanne Alvarado said they tried to provide compassionate medical care for youths held at the state’s juvenile detention facility in Adair County, and especially for a 17-year-old girl with worsening mental health who was locked in isolation for extended periods.”

▪ March 7, 2023: “At least 239 youths booked into Kentucky’s juvenile detention centers in 2022 weren’t the ‘significantly more violent’ predators about whom Gov. Andy Beshear and legislators warn as they call for guards to be armed with Tasers and pepper spray, according to a state database obtained by the Herald-Leader.

“Instead, they were so-called ‘status offenders,’ charged with minor, age-specific violations like truancy or running away from home. On average, they spent a week in custody, although five were locked up for a month or more in pre-trial detention.

“And more than 100 youths held in juvenile detention last year were wards of the state, usually teenagers from broken homes who were assigned to caseworkers at the Kentucky Department for Community Based Services, according to a separate set of state records.”

▪ March 13, 2023: “A psychiatrist who worked with youths in custody at the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice was relieved of his duties in January after he was caught on video pouring an Adderall pill into his mouth and then going to sleep in the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Jackson, according to state records.”

▪ March 20, 2023: “Before starting a two-week break on March 16, the Kentucky legislature sent two bills to Gov. Andy Beshear that would spend tens of millions of dollars while making several changes to how the state runs its juvenile detention centers, where riots, assaults and chronic neglect of youths in their cells have become commonplace.

“Unlike some other measures during the legislative session, the juvenile justice bills ended up with bipartisan support, praised by outside observers.”

▪ April 13, 2023: “A former employee of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice sued the state on Wednesday, saying that he was wrongfully fired for reporting the physical abuse of a boy held in custody.

“It’s at least the second lawsuit this year filed by DJJ employees who claim they lost their jobs because they tried to expose the mistreatment of youths in the state’s chaotic juvenile detention centers.”

▪ April 17, 2023: “For at least the third time this year, a lawsuit alleges the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice harassed and ultimately fired an employee for reporting the mistreatment of youths held in state custody.”

▪ Aug. 18, 2023: “Despite promises of reform at the troubled Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, it has seen serious trouble this year at its all-girls detention center in Northern Kentucky, including excessive use of force by staff, failure to monitor suicidal youths and the recent alcohol-related firing of its superintendent, according to a Herald-Leader review of state records.

“Also, the Kentucky State Police is investigating ‘potential criminal activity’ involving a male correctional officer and one or more girls housed at the Campbell Regional Juvenile Detention Center that was captured on security video May 23 and May 30, according to Morgan Hall, spokeswoman for the Kentucky Justice and Public Safety Cabinet.”

▪ Sept. 7, 2023: “Staff at a state juvenile detention center in Adair County improperly used pepper spray on youths as punishment at least three times in March, sometimes forcing youths to wait more than 30 minutes before washing off the burning chemicals, according to internal reports obtained by the Herald-Leader.

“At least twice, staff fired pepper spray on youths through the small slot in their cell door while they were confined alone inside, with nowhere to hide, according to the reports.”

▪ Oct. 11, 2023: “The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice fired a male correctional officer June 6 and notified Kentucky State Police after a review of security video footage suggested the officer kissed and had other inappropriate contact with one or more teenage girls inside the all-girls Campbell Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Newport.”

▪ Oct. 13, 2023: “A Kentucky legislative committee Thursday heard more information about problems at the state Department of Juvenile Justice that were previously disclosed in Herald-Leader news stories, including the misuse of pepper spray on youths and the failure to act quickly on complaints of sexual misbehavior by a male correctional officer.

“The Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee also heard a critical report from lawyers at the state Department of Public Advocacy. They warned that youths’ rights have been violated at the Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Columbia, which the department operates.

“Youths have been locked alone in their cells for days or weeks for so-called ‘non-behavior isolation,’ even when they didn’t commit any offenses in the facility, according to the report.”

▪ Nov. 16, 2023: “Kentucky Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed, who has been criticized for assaults, escapes, riots and the abuse and neglect of youths at juvenile detention centers under her watch, will resign effective Jan. 1, Gov. Andy Beshear said Thursday.”

▪ Jan. 17, 2024: “Two young women say in a lawsuit they and other girls were abused, neglected, humiliated and deprived of health care, education and basic hygiene in 2022 at the state-run juvenile detention center in Adair County.

“Among their claims: Detention center staff often exposed girls’ nakedness ‘to members of the opposite sex, either through conducting the forcible removal of clothing or by withholding clothing while in view of employees and other detainees,’ the suit alleges. ‘Male staff regularly conducted cell checks on girls detained without clothing.’”

▪ Jan. 31, 2024: “The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice has failed to comply with reforms called for in a 2017 critical inspection report, including better security and medical staffing, on-site mental health care and less use of solitary confinement for the teenagers in its custody, according to an independent audit released Wednesday.

“As a result, despite years of outside scrutiny, the department’s eight juvenile detention centers continue to be mismanaged, with cruel isolation policies and high levels of extreme use of force, according to the audit.”

▪ Jan. 31, 2024: “A mentally ill 17-year-old girl spent much of the summer of 2022 locked — sometimes naked — in a filthy isolation cell in one of Kentucky’s controversial juvenile detention centers, where security staff mocked her smell and ignored her cries for help, according to a federal lawsuit filed this week.

“Neglected for weeks, the girl grew increasingly confused and paranoid. She reached her hands through a narrow flap in her cell door and called out, ‘They are going to kill me,’ according to the suit.”

▪ Feb. 13, 2024: “Last September, the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice described several wrongful uses of pepper spray on youths in detention as isolated errors that happened in early 2023 while employees learned how to use the newly available defensive weapon.

“But at least seven more confirmed reports followed over the next few months as teenagers were unjustly blasted with pepper spray, not for fighting or starting riots but because they had failed to follow instructions, according to internal investigative reports the Herald-Leader obtained under Kentucky’s Open Records Act.”

▪ March 21, 2024: “Gov. Andy Beshear on Thursday named former prison warden Randy White as the new commissioner of the embattled Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice.”

▪ May 9, 2024: Scores of substantiated youth grievances at the juvenile detention centers in Adair, Campbell, Fayette and McCracken counties over a 15-month period reveal problems with poor sanitation, safety concerns, staff misbehavior and bad or unclean food, according to documents the Herald-Leader obtained through the Kentucky Open Records Act.

“In a prepared statement, the Department of Juvenile Justice said reforms are underway to do a better job fixing the problems revealed by teens’ complaints.”

▪ May 15, 2024: “A federal civil-rights investigation into how youths are treated inside the eight detention centers run by the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice has been launched, the U.S. Department of Justice announced Wednesday.”