Expect an increase of youth offenders entering Kentucky's already troubled juvenile detention centers.

Today in Frankfort, the state's top juvenile justice official said a decade ago, state lawmakers acted to keep misdemeanor offenders out of the system.

But recent legislation could put hundreds more violent youth offenders behind bars.

In 2023.

House Bill three required automatic detention of youth charged with violent crimes.

This provision will start effective July 1st of this year and will have significant impact upon the detention population.

Commissioner Randy White says these offenders need a lot of help.

One lawmaker says maintaining order and safety at facilities is just as important.

All of this to say after 27 years of serving in corrections and having interactions with juveniles as they were transferred from detention to prison, I can honestly say that juveniles entering the criminal justice system are a different population than they were 27 years ago.

They're committing harsher crimes, which require stronger rehabilitative efforts for Kentucky to truly reduce the juvenile population.

We must focus our efforts on alternatives to detention, education, programing, employment and mental health.

Unfortunately, some of the population that you deal with, I would venture to say at this point, probably the majority of the population you deal with are young men who are probably strong, who've gotten out of order and who frankly have resorted to violence at more than one time in their life.

So if they have to deal with some pepper spray, possibly if they have to deal with electronic means of of tasers, which you've not had to use yet to keep order in these facilities, those sometimes are the types of things we have to do if we want to keep people safe.

The US Department of Justice recently announced it is investigating the state's juvenile detention centers for alleged abuse and neglect.