On Thursday, Governor Andy Beshear announced some major changes are coming to the Kentucky’s juvenile justice system due to safety and staffing shortages.
Some of the major changes include substantial security upgrades to the detention centers, increased visitor screening, and trying to prevent drugs from making it into the centers.
There is also a new director of security, Larry Chandler, who has previously been the warden of six Kentucky prisons.
More changes announced were a pay raise for juvenile justice workers. They will now be reclassified as corrections officers with a starting salary of $50,000 a year. Corrections officers will now be armed with “defensive equipment,” which are not guns but pepper spray.
Beshear said there will be tasers available, but they are still working on when and where they will actually be carried.
Beshear said right now when there is a major incident all they can do is lockdown and wait for state police or others to arrive. They cannot even intercede when there is a violent altercation because they don’t have the ability to do so safely.
Beshear hasn’t offered a specific price tag, but he said this plan is expensive and necessary.
Source: WAVE
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