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Kentucky’s juvenile justice system has lingering issues with the usage of pressure and isolation methods and has performed little to implement a 2017 state audit’s recommendations for enchancment, in response to a report launched Wednesday.
The new report from Kentucky Auditor Allison Ball says the state’s juvenile detention facilities lack clear insurance policies regarding the usage of isolation cells, Tasers and pepper spray, and have vital staffing issues. It additionally discovered that Department of Juvenile Justice staffers have been utilizing pepper spray at a charge nearly 74 occasions larger than it’s used in adult federal prisons.
A federal lawsuit filed earlier this month alleges that two teen women have been saved in isolation cells for weeks in unsanitary circumstances at a youth facility in Adair County in 2022. That similar yr, the detention heart was the location of a riot that started when a juvenile assaulted a workers member. Another federal lawsuit was filed this week by a girl who stated that as a 17-year-old, she spent a month in an isolation cell on the Adair facility in 2022.
The auditor’s overview was requested final yr by state lawmakers.
“The state of the Department of Juvenile Justice has been a concern across the Commonwealth and a legislative priority over the past several years,” Ball stated in a press release Wednesday.
Kentucky State Auditor Allison Ball is seen right here on the Kentucky State Capitol because the Constitutional Officers are being sworn in, in Frankfort, Ky., on Jan. 2, 2024. Ball carried out an audit of the state’s juvenile detention services and located them to be disorganized, missing clear protocols, and dealing with staffing issues. (AP Photo/Timothy D. Easley, File)
Ball blamed Democratic Gov. Andy Beshear’s administration for “disorganization across facilities, and as a result, the unacceptably poor treatment of Kentucky youth.” Beshear earlier this month criticized a Kentucky House price range proposal for missing funding for brand new female-only juvenile justice facilities.
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The auditor’s report, labeled a “performance assessment,” discovered that the Juvenile Justice division’s “practices for isolation are inconsistently defined, applied and in conflict with nationally-recognized best practices.” The division’s use of pressure insurance policies are additionally “poorly deployed and defined,” it stated.
The report stated the findings from the 2017 audit have largely not been addressed, together with issues of overuse of solitary confinement, low medical care requirements and the poor high quality of the coverage guide.
Beshear initiated a brand new state coverage for juvenile offenders final yr that locations male juveniles charged with critical crimes in a high-security facility. The coverage changed a decades-old regional system that put juveniles in services based mostly on the place they stay.
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