Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center To Close

Lincoln Village Juvenile Detention Center in Elizabethtown will close next month, according to a Department of Juvenile Justice news release.

Officials held a meeting Wednesday morning with employees at the New Glendale Road facility to inform them of the decision. Current employees will transition to other Department of Juvenile Justice facilities throughout the state.

The closing stems from Senate Bill 200, a reform calling for more effective use of resources and more reliance on alternatives to incarceration to achieve better outcomes and improve public safety, according to a news release. The move prompted a sharp decline in the number of youths who are housed in secure facilities. As a result, out-of-home placements are down roughly 40 percent, and many of Kentucky’s short- and long-term facilities are routinely operating well below capacity.

At Lincoln Village, which has availability for 44 youths, recently has seen a population of about 20, according to the release.

The department began realigning operations more than a year ago to reduce dependence on secure facilities and channel resources toward evidence-based practices and community supervision. Since then, two other programs have been consolidated into the overall juvenile system: Murray Group Home in Calloway County and Owensboro Treatment Center in Daviess County.

The three locations were chosen mostly because of low utilization, according to the release.

Senate Bill 200 also sought to hold low-level offenders accountable by expanding access to quality supervision in the community and focusing the most intensive resources on the most serious offenders. It also called for any reduction in operational costs to be reinvested into evidence-based practices, day treatment programs and community-based resources.
Source: NE