US Department of Justice launches investigation into abuse in Kentucky's juvenile justice system

On May 15, the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) launched an investigation into eight Kentucky state juvenile correctional facilities and a “youth development center” operated by the state’s Department of Youth Services. The investigation followed persistent reports of “excessive use of force by staff, prolonged and punitive isolation, and inadequate protections from violence and sexual abuse,” according to the Special Litigation Section of the DOJ’s Civil Rights Division.

The federal investigation comes less than six months after former inmates at a youth correctional facility filed a lawsuit describing the abuse, neglect and humiliation they experienced at the hands of prison staff.

One of these cases involved a 17-year-old girl who spent most of the summer of 2022 locked in a filthy isolation cell in unsanitary conditions, sometimes naked, while prison staff ignored her cries for help and made fun of her body odor.

The lawsuit states that the girl became “increasingly confused and paranoid after weeks of neglect. She would reach her hands through a narrow hatch in the door of her cell and shout, ‘They’re going to kill me.'”

The rampant abuses in the state’s juvenile justice system have been documented for nearly a decade by repeated investigations, state audits and outcry from juvenile advocates, often met with platitudes by state lawmakers and officials.

Meanwhile, former prison and care staff at these facilities have been victims of retaliation for exposing the inhumane and dangerous abuse of children in custody. In 2023, there were three separate incidents in which this happened.

In January of this year, a state investigation uncovered systematic abuse in Kentucky’s juvenile correctional facilities. The report, “Juvenile Justice Performance Assessment of Facilities,” was commissioned only because of a series of assaults, escapes and riots in these brutal, overcrowded prisons.

The audit found that the facilities had failed to implement protocols recommended back in 2017. Those protocols called for “better security and medical staff, on-site mental health care, and less solitary confinement for the teenagers in their care.”

Kentucky currently operates eight prisons designed to house young people. These prisons incarcerate approximately 163 youth per 100,000 annually, more than double the national average of 74 per 100,000. Although the number of youth incarcerated follows a decreasing national trend, the “intake” numbers show a sharp increase between 2021 (1,861 inmates) and 2022 (3,044 inmates) as pandemic measures have ended.

A large portion of youth incarcerated in Kentucky are considered “status offenders,” accused of minor and age-specific offenses such as truancy or running away from home. On average, they spend about a week in custody, although many more are held for a month or more.

Many of these children are not considered “significantly more violent” or “a danger to society.” In reality, they are victims of a cruel social order that has produced mass poverty, a raging opioid epidemic, and the destruction of basic social fabric.

None of the investigations or policy proposals from state or federal agencies are able to examine the role of mass incarceration in contemporary American society, let alone its underlying causes. In launching the federal investigation, Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke stated, “Containment in juvenile corrections is intended to help children avoid future contact with police and grow into law-abiding, productive members of society. Too often, juvenile corrections break our children and subject them to dangerous and traumatic conditions.”

By “productive members of society,” the Justice Department is expressing the concern of the Biden administration and the entire political establishment that many young people of an entire generation are not integrated into the capitalist profit system or the war machine. These children grew up in a time of constant war, unprecedented inequality, police violence, and the destruction of public schools and other social infrastructure. Poor youth are expected to either join the military or condemn themselves to low-wage shoveling in the furnaces of Amazon, Walmart, and other billionaire-run corporations.

Kentucky’s Democratic governor, Andy Beshear, has dismissed the investigation into youth prisons as a “political tool” of the Republican-dominated legislature. The state’s auditor had previously said the management of these facilities was due to a “lack of leadership” in the governor’s office.

Despite the differences between Democrats and Republicans, Kentucky’s ruling class is united in its desire to prevent any significant change in the juvenile justice system. Even cosmetic prison reforms have been blocked. Senate Bill 242, blocked in the House, would have put $165 million into building three new juvenile correctional facilities, two of which would have been exclusively for women. It would have renovated existing facilities, including a 16-bed complex at Louisville’s Central State Hospital for “high-needs” youth who most need psychiatric care.

While SB 242 would have addressed funding issues related to renovating existing facilities and separating male and female juveniles, it would not have addressed the use of solitary confinement, which was used 1,579 times last year, or nearly 200 times per month, nor would it address the violent use of force by prison staff through “chemical agents, stun guns, and other security control devices.”

Rather than addressing abuse or the long-term physical and psychological effects it has on young people, the state is trying to crack down even harder on crime. Most notably, the Safer Kentucky Act, which went into effect in April, increases penalties for several crimes and makes homelessness a felony.

Related Posts

Doctoral student receives life sentence for sexually abusing several children

Police officer shoots man near Vancouver waterfront

Missouri: City disbands police force after struggling to recover from pandemic revenue losses