LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- After years of complaints about horrific conditions within Kentucky youth detention centers, one attorney familiar with the allegations said he's not surprised the U.S. Department of Justice is investigating.

The Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice has struggled to house increasing numbers of youths accused of violent offenses. The result was a string of assaults, riots and escapes as well as incidents of abuse and neglect of youths at juvenile detention centers.

Hundreds of people have said the same thing about what happens behind the walls of Kentucky's youth detention centers.

"It's probably in the hundreds at this point," attorney John Friend said. "It's not a small number."

When asked what that number says to him, he responded: "They're telling the truth."

Friend represents several women in a class action lawsuit who were in custody as juveniles. The lawsuit claims they, along with others, were involuntary held alone in a cell, room, or other area as punishment, subjected to the use of pepper spray and had their clothes forcibly removed by or within view of members of the opposite sex.

"Most of the time, when you get into a situation where there are alleged civil rights violations, you find a lot of gray," Friend said. "You don't find a great deal of black and white. You find a lot of different recollections ... We don't really have that here. Everyone seems to remember things the same way."

The main thing he said he saw over and over again was misuse of solitary confinement.

So when the DOJ announced earlier this week a civil rights investigation into Kentucky's Juvenile Justice system, he said he wasn't surprised.

"When there are formerly incarcerated persons, former guards, all sorts of other people and they're all saying the same thing, you start to wonder how big is this problem exactly?" Friend asked.

In a statement, Gov. Andy Beshear said his administration implemented the most extensive reforms in the state's juvenile justice department, including separating boys and girls, separating those accused of significant crimes from lower-level offenders and also requiring more training.

"If you have a person that you've been holding in isolation, not letting them shower, not feeding them properly, not socializing them, not educating them and you do this for several years and then you just put them on a bus and let them out somewhere, it does not end take a rocket scientist to figure out where that is going to go, and it's not going to go anywhere good," Friend said.

U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Kentucky will partner with the Civil Rights Division and the Eastern District to conduct the investigation. 

According to a news release, the investigation will be conducted under the Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act and the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act. 

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