LEXINGTON, Ky. — Inmates got spoiled milk and uncooked or burned food, served with dirty cups and utensils.

Bed sheets weren’t washed for weeks. Inmates were threatened with sexual violence by other inmates.

Guards, who sometimes failed to conduct safety checks, withheld showers. Prescription medicines weren’t handed out.

Some days there was no running water in the cells, where inmates were stuck indefinitely and, in one case, was denied cleaning supplies after vomiting on the floor. Other days, the hot water heater, furnace or air conditioning were on the fritz.

“I don’t feel safe in this facility,” one inmate wrote.

These aren’t scenes from behind the walls of a maximum-security state prison.

Instead, they’re among the handwritten complaints submitted by teenagers in the custody of the Kentucky Department of Juvenile Justice from January 2023 through March 2024, according to a review of documents The Lexington Herald-Leader obtained through the Kentucky Open Records Act.

Each of these complaints — formally known as “grievances” — were determined to be legitimate after a review by department employees.

Overall, there were 87 substantiated grievances in that 15-month period at the four facilities examined by the newspaper — the juvenile detention centers in Adair, Campbell, Fayette and McCracken counties, which have experienced some of the department’s worst incidents in recent years, including riots, escapes and attacks.

But that’s just a sample.

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