KY juvenile justice facility neglected, humiliated teen girls, new lawsuit says

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.”

Also, youths were locked in isolation for weeks despite mental and physical health ailments that should have discouraged the use of extended “lockdowns,” according to the lawsuit filed digitally Monday.

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One youth also was held in an isolation cell with the door’s window covered and a Spanish version of the toddler’s song “Baby Shark” playing over and over on an audio loop, according to the suit.

Jamiahia Kennedy and Willow Neal sued the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, citing violations of their civil rights. They seek class-action status to represent “potentially hundreds” of other youths who passed through the Adair Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Columbia.

Kennedy and Neal are now adults and no longer in the Department of Juvenile Justice’s custody, said their attorney, Laura Landenwich.

Youths held at the detention center were treated as “sub-human” by some employees, Landenwich said.

“Talking to these girls, it’s just so tragic, just the entire experience. It’s intolerable to treat people the way they’ve been treated,” she said.

Also named as defendants were several state officials, including Justice and Public Safety Secretary Kerry Harvey, who is set to retire shortly; former Juvenile Justice Commissioner Vicki Reed, who resigned last month; and Tonya Burton, superintendent of the Adair County facility.

The Department of Juvenile Justice has not yet been served with the suit and has no comment on it, spokeswoman Morgan Hall said Tuesday.

“DJJ works tirelessly to provide safe and effective services to the juveniles in its care,” Hall said. “For any staff member who violates policy and procedure, corrective action is taken.”

In their suit, Kennedy and Neal said they each spent part of 2022 housed in the long-troubled Adair County facility that in the past two years has been the scene of a riot, a rape, assaults and other serious problems.

Last year, the ACLU of Kentucky filed a complaint asking the U.S. Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division to investigate “unsanitary and nearly uninhabitable” conditions inside the detention center.

And lawyers at the state Department of Public Advocacy issued a report last year warning that the facility violates the rights of youths by locking them alone in their cells for long periods for so-called “non-behavior isolation,” even when they didn’t commit any offenses.

The new lawsuit alleges the Adair County facility is “chronically understaffed,” often operating with only five employees to oversee 40 youths. Many of its employees are too poorly trained to handle potentially dangerous confrontations or to work with at-risk youths who have emotional or mental health problems, the suit says.

Without enough employees available to supervise daily activities, the detention center simply locks youths in isolation for days or weeks at a time, the suit alleges.

In the lawsuit, Kennedy said she was held in an isolation cell throughout her four months at the Adair County facility, from August 2022 to December 2022.

Kennedy had access to a shower about 15 times, or less than once weekly, she said. On one occasion, she was accompanied to the showers by two male officers, she said.

Following a suicide attempt, Kennedy said she was moved into a padded cell where male employees cut off her clothing. She remained in the padded cell for about two months. The padded cell had neither a bed nor a functioning toilet, she said.

Without a working toilet, urine and feces overflowed into the cell, she said.

Although Kennedy initially was outfitted with an anti-suicide smock to prevent her from hurting herself, facility officials later removed it and did not provide her with any other clothing or shower access for about 12 days, she said.

On several occasions, she asked for feminine hygiene products but was refused, she said.

Kennedy was diagnosed with serious mental health conditions, but she did not get mental health treatment, she said. In November 2022, the facility’s staff withheld prescribed medicines from Kennedy and other youths as a form of collective punishment, she said.

The second plaintiff, Willow Neal, said she was held at the detention center from Nov. 10 to Dec. 15, 2022, while she was 17 years old and seven months pregnant.

Medical providers advised the facility’s management that Neal should not be locked in an isolation cell during her late stage of pregnancy, but she was anyway, Neal said. Over the course of her detention, she was allowed out of her cell to take a walk about once a week.

Neal’s cell was infested with insects, she said, but her requests for cleaning supplies were denied.

Instead of educational classes, Neal was given workbooks to complete on her own, with no school credit, she said. She did not receive any mental health care or prescription medicines, she said.

Nor was the mistreatment limited to them, Kennedy and Neal said in the suit. The young women said they both observed a girl held at the facility “who spent days soaked in menstrual blood while detention center staff told her she was ‘nasty’ and ‘smelled like fish,’” according to the suit.

And another girl was left in an isolation cell without running water and frequently without lighting while her mental and physical health rapidly deteriorated, distressing medical providers at the facility, the suit alleged.