Louisville's recent teenage violence renews push to reopen juvenile jail

LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WDRB) -- Police arrested two teenagers this month for a shootout near a Louisville school bus stop, a dangerous scene that highlighted the city's youth violence epidemic and renewed a push to reopen Louisville's juvenile justice center.

It could be years before that happens, and some lawmakers said Thursday that's unacceptable.

The shootout happened Aug. 7, the first day of class for Jefferson County Public Schools. A teenage boy was arrested shortly thereafter and faces dozens of charges, including 33 counts of wanton endangerment and one count of possession of a handgun by a minor. A second suspect, arrested Wednesday, faces the same charges.

Police said the two teens had an "exchange of gunfire" near 10th and Chestnut streets.

Rep. Jared Bauman, R-Louisville, believes Louisville's juvenile jail is a key to solving the problem.

"Without this juvenile justice center, we can't get to them," Bauman said. "They either go two hours away to Adair County or they just go right back into the community with the revolving door."

"I think we need to get back to accountability — but better rehabilitation — for these juvenile criminals. In order to do that, we need the facility here in Louisville open."

The former city-run facility on Jefferson Street shut down in 2019 because of staffing, safety and budget concerns. In 2023, the General Assembly allocated money to reopen it as a state facility. Metro Government then handed the building over to the state so it could be renovated.

More than two years later, construction has started, but the facility is still years away from opening.

"I've sent letters to the governor, to the commissioner of juvenile justice asking for progress updates," Bauman said. "I never get answers and then I hear that's going to be 2027. That's unacceptable. I know this can happen faster."

"This needs to be the No. 1 issue right now for our governor right now in the state of Kentucky ..."

Bauman pressed state leaders to expedite the process in a committee hearing this week in Frankfort.

"The process of receiving a building from the city of Louisville — to design, to retrofit, to serve this population — is a very complex process," Scott Baker, Executive Director of The Division of Engineering Contract Administration within the Kentucky Finance and Administration Cabinet, said in the hearing. "That's why the design process took as long as it did. And now, we're in the construction phase."

Last year, WDRB learned the state has allocated nearly $40 million on the project so far. The renovated facility will include 18 additional cells for a total of 64 beds — triple the old facility's capacity.

"Our directives from the finance cabinet and the governor's office have been to push this project forward as fast we can," Baker said. "And we have pushed this project as fast as we can."

But Baker said there's only one way to get the facility open sooner.

"You'd have to throw a tremendous amount of money — additional funds — at the project in order for the contractor to deliver the project faster than it we normally be delivered," he said. "Construction takes time."

Bauman strongly disagrees with that.

"The general assembly has allocated tens of millions of dollars for this juvenile facility," he said. "To say that we just need to throw more money at it is, quite frankly, just a lazy and unacceptable way of approaching this problem."

In a written statement Thursday, a spokesperson for Beshear said the state has worked "diligently" to complete each phase of the project.

"As the General Assembly recognized and required in House Bill 3, the design and construction of the Louisville Youth Detention Center was contingent on the completed transfer of the property deed from Louisville Metro to the Commonwealth of Kentucky," spokesperson Scottie Ellis said. "It took two years for Louisville Metro to transfer the deed to the state, during which time the state continued to work through the design phase so that it was able to secure the bid and begin construction three weeks after the transfer was complete."

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