LOUISVILLE, Ky. — New details have been released about a riot at the Adair County Juvenile Detention Center and how it may have been related to the fire that broke out at a Louisville juvenile detention center.
Officials say a few days before the riot, some juveniles were transferred to Adair County from the Jefferson Regional Juvenile Detention Center in Lyndon.
They were transferred after a routine test found problems with the fire system at the Lyndon facility.
The riot in Adair County happened after the transfer.
Department of Juvenile Justice officials testified to lawmakers on Friday that staff did not have time for a proper intake and could not identify the transferred youths' gang affiliations.
"The booking system includes areas to identify gang information, information such as descriptions of tattoos and photographs, but it does not have required fields, is not designed to generate reports, and is used inconsistently," one official said. "If information had been entered consistently, staff may have been able to identify the security risk despite the timeframe."
Lawmakers also heard from the Secretary of the Department for Juvenile Justice, Vicki Reed, who told lawmakers there is an issue with staffing, but it's gotten better with pay raises granted over the past months.
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