Police Shootings / Possible Abuse Threads [merged]
Willow Neal was 17-years-old and seven months pregnant when she was sent to an isolation cell in the Adair Youth Development Center in Columbia, Ky., in November 2022, a new lawsuit alleges. She rarely left.
Neal was only let out of her cell five times to take a walk, and received just 12 showers during her month-long detention, isolation that went against the advice of her medical providers, according to the lawsuit.
In the cell next to Neal’s, 17-year-old Jamiahia Kennedy resorted to washing her body with her bra after being denied showers, according to the lawsuit. For two months, Kennedy was allegedly moved to a soiled padded cell without a bed or a working toilet.
Staff allegedly subjected other minors in the juvenile detention center to various abuses.
One was held in an isolation cell without lights or running water, and another in a cell that had a Spanish version of the song “Baby Shark” playing on loop, the lawsuit states.
Neal and Kennedy, who are both now 18 and released from the detention center, described the alleged abuses in a class-action lawsuit filed Monday against the detention center, the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice, the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services and several employees who allegedly ignored repeated reports of poor conditions at the prison.
The lawsuit adds to complaints the state’s juvenile justice system has faced over several years…….
The Kentucky agencies named in the suit deny the allegations, said spokeswoman Morgan Hall, who added that the state “works tirelessly to provide safe and effective services to the juveniles in its care.”
“For any staff member who violates policy and procedure, corrective action is taken. We deny the allegations in the lawsuit and will defend accordingly,” Hall said.
The detention center houses around 40 minors at a time and holds pre- and post-conviction juvenile offenders as well as non-offenders in the custody of the Kentucky Cabinet for Health and Family Services, according to Neal and Kennedy’s lawsuit. The suit seeks damages for anyone who has been abused while held in isolation at the detention center.
Children detained at the center had restricted access to showers, restrooms and medical care, and were not provided educational instruction, according to the lawsuit.
As punishment, staff allegedly withheld prescribed medications from detainees. Male staff conducted cell checks on girls detained without clothing, the suit alleged…….
https://www.washingtonpost.com/nation/2024/01/21/kentucky-youth-prison-abuse/