This month at the State Oversight Academy, we are taking a closer look at oversight of juvenile justice issues. Like any circumstance when government cares for people in a vulnerable position, juvenile justice is an area where heightened attention to the performance and integrity of public programs makes sense. At the same time, shifting attitudes and policies around criminal justice and changing understandings of youth development have pushed juvenile justice into the oversight limelight in recent years.
This month’s Oversight Overview video examines legislative oversight of juvenile justice in Connecticut, New Jersey, and Kansas, as well as the resulting policy reforms. The oversight approaches detailed here illustrate how state legislators are using the power of their offices to pursue facts through university collaboration, expert commissions, and department reports.
Another state also recently zeroed in on juvenile justice: Kentucky. Following several incidents in juvenile detention centers, the state legislature has been working to find the facts and change their system for the better. Their work gives us an opportunity to examine an oversight investigation as it happens.
At the Levin Center, we think of an oversight investigation in four parts: the investigation itself, a written product, a hearing, and a program of follow-up. The investigation finds the facts; the written product lays them out; the hearing puts those facts on the record with witnesses and a measure of direct accountability; and the follow-up aims to translate elevated awareness of the problem into effective solutions. With that in mind, look at Kentucky’s juvenile justice work in the context of those four phases.
The Investigation
Kentucky’s Legislative Oversight and Investigations Committee (LOIC) is the main investigative committee for Kentucky’s legislative branch. Its members come from both the House and Senate, and its authorizing statute gives them broad powers to study state agencies and issue reports and recommendations.
In August of 2022, a teen in the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center near Louisville set a fire with a lighter she had smuggled in. For safety, other teens were let out of their rooms, and one of them scaled a fence and briefly escaped. On October 13, 2022, LOIC directed its staff to investigate the incident.
Less than a month later at a separate facility, a riot broke out after a teen stole keys from an employee and used them to unlock the cells of 32 others. The Associated Press reported that state troopers and other law enforcement had to be summoned to restore order, and reports of a sexual assault during the incident made headlines.
The incident once again raised the profile of the state’s juvenile justice system. By February of 2023, the General Assembly had passed a concurrent resolution to establish a legislative work group on the matter. Though it did most of its work behind closed doors, the work group did issue a number of recommendations some weeks later.
Meanwhile, much of LOIC’s investigative work was carried out by staff, who conducted interviews of everyone from Department of Juvenile Justice leadership to local fire officials, to department staff in other states. They visited juvenile detention centers in Kentucky and beyond and reviewed historical data from every corner of Kentucky’s juvenile justice system. By the summer, they had compiled their findings in a written report.
The Written Product
By July of 2023, a team of a dozen staff had produced a 171-page report detailing not only specific problems in the juvenile justice system, but the factors that had led to them. The report included information on facilities, staffing, transportation, administrative structures, legislative history, and much more. It examined changes in mental health among juvenile offenders and other states’ work to address them.
All told, the report included 30 recommendations ranging from increasing the online presence of the Department of Juvenile Justice’s ombudsman to improving the department’s system for recording gang affiliations. While some recommendations require legislation, most are operations reforms.
Hearings
Even before the report was finished, LOIC held a hearing in June during which leadership from the Justice and Public Safety Cabinet and the Department of Juvenile Justice gave updates in initiatives to fix staffing and security issues in the system, as well as updates on the implementation of related legislation. The same leaders returned for LOIC’s July meeting where they were asked to provide their response to the staff report.
In October, department leadership was called before LOIC once more to address issues around the use of pepper spray and isolation for offenders, actions in violation of the department’s own policies. The hearing received newspaper and television coverage, raising the profile of the issues.
Follow-Up and Policy Impact
Increased attention – by the legislative branch, the media, and the public – has already led to some reforms. During their session in winter of 2023, the General Assembly passed two appropriations bills to address staffing and facilities issues within the Department of Juvenile Justice, both of which were signed by the Governor at the same time as he ordered other reforms. While the reforms predated the report and many of the hearings by LOIC, they did come on the heels of a press conference by the legislative work group created shortly before.
In November 2023, the Governor announced the resignation of the Juvenile Justice Commissioner. The move came in the wake not only of work by LOIC, but also staff whistleblowers and mounting media coverage detailing bad conditions in juvenile detention facilities.
“I think we’ve got a good road map for DJJ.” The Governor said of the Department of Juvenile Justice in November. “I believe that if we continue to work the plan in coordination with the General Assembly, that we are already in a better place and we are getting to a better place.”The Governor’s 2024 budget proposal includes major funding for juvenile justice facility improvements. The General Assembly is in session through April 15.
Too often, the last oversight step – follow-up – falls by the wayside as the legislature is pulled in other directions. Continued oversight interest, movement toward reforms, and media headlines are encouraging signs that the legislature is committed to seeing the reforms through and ensuring that they are implemented and produce positive results.
