FRANKFORT, Ky. (WHAS11) – The Department of Juvenile Justice is consolidating operations and focusing more resources on community-based interventions to better protect public safety.
In doing so, the Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center in Hardin County will be closing. It will cease operations in mid-June. The plans to close were announced Wednesday, May 24. Staff from this facility and youth programs will be moved to other facilities in Kentucky.
Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center is the third facility to close since Senate Bill 200 took effect. That bill called for the more effective use of resources and more reliance on alternatives to incarceration to achieve better outcomes and improve public safety, according to the Kentucky’s Justice Cabinet.
Operation consolidation started more than a year ago and the following systems have also been consolidated into the overall juvenile system: Murray Group Home in Calloway County and Owensboro Treatment Center in Daviess County.
The facilities that have closed were selected mostly due to low utilization, according to the Mike Wynn, spokesperson for Kentucky’s Justice Cabinet.
Wynn said Owensboro Treatment Center was serving 17 to 19 youths but had the capacity for 30 and Lincoln Village served 20 but had a capacity for 44.
The justice cabinet says no workers have been laid off due to the facility consolidations.
In 2016, Gynnya McMillen was found dead in her cell at Lincoln Villiage Detention Center. The autopsy report says Gynnya died from natural causes, but the case raised several questions about how she was treated at Lincoln Village.
A lawsuit, filed by McMillen's mother, claims the Detention Center's employees heard McMillen coughing the night she died and watched her have seizure-like movements. McMillen’s mother claims the staff did nothing to help her.
Those employees have since been fired and faced misconduct charges in Hardin County.
