The Department of Juvenile Justice operates 14 juvenile detention centers and youth development centers around the state. They hold hundreds of teenagers in an average year as they await legal action on criminal charges or serve their sentences.

The grievances provide a rare glimpse inside Kentucky’s juvenile justice facilities, which have been the subject of critical audits and multiple lawsuits alleging abuse, neglect and general mistreatment of youths.

The Herald-Leader analysis shows the most common grievances were related to poor sanitation, followed by safety concerns, staff misbehavior and bad or unclean food.

“Wow,” said Laura Landenwich, a Louisville lawyer whom the Herald-Leader asked to review the grievances.

Landenwich represents several juvenile inmates suing the department over their treatment in custody.

“These are consistent with what we have heard from our clients,” she said.

In her clients’ lawsuit, filed in January in U.S. District Court in Bowling Green, youths said they were attacked, humiliated and deprived of health care, education and basic hygiene while held in detention.

A 14-year-old boy said he suffered a broken jaw in an assault and had to wait four days until he was taken to a hospital for surgery.

Some of the suit’s allegations, like deprivation of showers and medicine, are similar to those contained in the grievances. Yet the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet is fighting her litigation in court while acknowledging the accuracy of the youths’ grievances behind closed doors, Landenwich said.

“The dysfunction in this organization is mind-blowing,” she said.

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