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“The Kentucky Senate has unanimously advanced a bill to formalize treatment protocols for youth in the Department of Juvenile Justice (DJJ) system who have ‘high acuity’ needs — including building a mental health detention center.
I think that we have a huge responsibility to … our kids who are justice-involved.
“Senate Bill 111 defines a ‘high acuity’ youth as ‘a child who has been determined by a clinical professional, following a behavioral assessment, to need an environment and specialized treatment capable of addressing manifest aggression, violence toward persons or property destruction.’
“The mental health facility, which sponsor Sen. Danny Carroll, R-Paducah, called the ‘key component’ of the bill, would be located at Central State Hospital in Louisville. A fiscal note estimates the price of designing it at around $5 million, ‘which will ultimately determine the construction costs to complete the facility.’
“The bill also calls for the construction of two female-only detention facilities, though a floor amendment delays that until a budget session, which the legislature holds in even numbered years. Those facilities would cost about $90 million. …
“Sen. Keturah Herron [Leading with Conviction™ 2019], D-Louisville, called for a continued look at DJJ and said the overall ‘lack of care and consistency and stability’ in the department could be contributing to behavioral problems in the centers.
“Reports of violence in Kentucky’s juvenile justice system regularly made headlines in 2023, including a riot in Adair County during which a girl in state custody was allegedly sexually assaulted and an attack on employees at a youth detention center in Warren County. The department has also faced persistent staffing issues and been the subject of considerable legislative attention and has been under investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice.
“‘The kids are going to respond to the environment in which they’re in,’ Herron said. ‘I think that we have a huge responsibility to continue to analyze, review and look at, from the top to bottom, the needs of our kids who are justice-involved. And it’s not just the kids who are in facilities, but it’s also the kids who are in communities, the kids when they’re coming home to reentry.’”
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