KY Stops Searching Naked Teens

By @KKYellowDog

Are you fucking kidding me?

Jennifer Hewlett at the Herald:

The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice has changed its entry screening policy after a federal judge questioned a juvenile detention facility's practice of screening juveniles while naked.

The change came Dec. 9, a day after U.S. Senior Judge Karl S. Forester said in a court document that, based upon preliminary research, he believed the "Body ID process" at the Breathitt Regional Juvenile Detention Center, in which juvenile detainees were "subjected to a visual, unclothed examination upon intake to the facility," was unconstitutional.

Forester's words were included in a court order pertaining to a pending lawsuit filed by the parents of two Perry County teen half-siblings, who were subjected to screenings while nude by guards at the Breathitt County facility in June 2009. The youths, a girl who was 14 at the time, and a boy, who was 15, were jailed after they were charged with alcohol intoxication — charges that were later dismissed, according to the lawsuit.

What amounts to sexual assault was widespread across the state's 29 juvenile facilities until the lawsuit exposed the practice and a judge barred it.

This should not come as a surprise to anyone familiar with Kentucky's despicable record on juvenile justice. Although the state vastly improved its procedures and facilities after the federal government withheld millions of dollars in funding in the mid-'90s, the fact remains that children as young as 11, guilty of nothing more than "status offenses" like skipping school and talking back to teachers, are arrested and incarcerated as if they were convicted felons.

And because most of these children come from families that are impoverished and politically powerless, state officials know they can mistreat these children with impunity. Nobody cares.