State leaders plan to move all boys out of Kearney’s state-run youth treatment center months after multiple allegations of sexual abuse there.
The teens would go to what’s currently a youth prison in Omaha, as part of a wider plan to shuffle in-custody kids.
State leaders assert the changes, which require legislative action, will better serve teens in the system and save the state money.
But some officials, such as the public defender in Nebraska’s largest county, say the plan raises questions, including how teens moved among various facilities will continue to receive appropriate programming.
The state’s Department of Health and Human Services operates three youth rehabilitation and treatment centers for juvenile offenders. Those are different from the state’s youth prison, which is run by the Department of Correctional Services and houses kids prosecuted as adults.
“There are a number of issues that need to be addressed before this is put into action,” said Douglas County Public Defender Tom Riley.
In October, the Flatwater Free Press reported on allegations that had surfaced in court hearings of staff sexually abusing teenagers at the Kearney center.
Initially, hearings and documents implicated four YRTC employees and involved three teenage boys. In a more recent court hearing, a Kearney administrator estimated eight to 10 boys had made allegations. Riley said his office has since learned a fifth staff member is facing accusations.
Only one of the accused employees has been charged criminally, according to court records.
“It appears to me that a systemic problem is an accurate way to describe it,” Riley said, adding that there seems to be a concerted effort “to minimize it at best and at worst hide it from the courts.”
The revelations last fall sparked an investigation from the state watchdog for child welfare.
But they didn’t motivate the state’s proposal, which was already in the works, said Lee Will, director of the state Department of Administrative Services. It was a collaboration between DHHS and Corrections, he said, which brought it to the Governor’s Office for discussion.
The move from Kearney to Omaha was part of Gov. Jim Pillen’s proposed budget adjustments released last week.
“It’s more about the overall space and youth allocation that had more to do with it … but I do think it’s going to provide safer facilities, cleaner facilities,” Will said. “So I do think it’s going to help the youth as a whole.”
Kearney — the largest of the state’s three Youth Rehabilitation and Treatment Centers — held an average of 76 boys per month in fiscal year 2025, according to a report from the Inspector General of Nebraska Child Welfare.
DHHS was looking for other options to house the growing population in Kearney, said John Meals, chief financial officer for the Department of Health and Human Services. At the same time, he said, Corrections had a large campus in Omaha that was “underutilized.”
Proposed relocation
Under the agencies’ plan:
- The boys currently housed at YRTC-Kearney would move to what’s currently a youth prison in Omaha, the Nebraska Correctional Youth Facility;
- The girls currently housed in YRTC-Hastings would move to YRTC-Kearney;
- The teens currently housed in Whitehall, a campus in Lincoln for kids with substance-use disorders and sexually harmful behaviors, would move to YRTC-Hastings;
- The youth currently at the Omaha prison would move to a newly renovated wing at the Reception and Treatment Center, an adult prison in Lincoln. There are also adults at the youth prison who would go to other prisons; and
- DHHS would vacate Whitehall.
The Kearney center — where the state plans to move the roughly one to two dozen girls housed in Hastings — currently has a licensed capacity of 142 and houses kids in barracks-style living quarters, according to a recent report. A new unit, slated to open this spring, will have 48 beds with individual rooms.
The Omaha prison has 92 rooms, Meals said. While they will be individual rooms as often as possible, there’s capacity for up to 143 beds.
The ability to use mostly individual rooms would be “significantly safer and better for both the youth and the workers,” Meals said. And, he added, it would keep the 80-90% of youth who come to Kearney from Douglas and Sarpy counties closer to their families.
Overall, Will said, the plan helps the state’s bottom line, resulting in a net gain of about $4 million a year.
It would also impact staffing. More people would be needed in Omaha, fewer in Kearney. The state would create as many opportunities as possible for people in Kearney to find jobs in Omaha, Meals said.
Justin Hubly, executive director of the Nebraska Association of Public Employees, said he hadn’t seen many details of the plan. The union represents state employees in roles including nurses and administrative support staff.
“We had no advanced notice, and there haven’t been discussions with our union formally or informally regarding any proposals to relocate youth, repurpose facilities or the potential effects on staff,” Hubly said in a text message. “Given the short staffing and high turnover at the YRTCs in recent years, we hope to be involved in discussions and planning to best serve the youth entrusted to the care of our members at these facilities.”
Moving girls into the Kearney center would require a state law change, Meals said, and there will be a line in the budget that the Legislature will have to approve.
State Sen. Brian Hardin, Health and Human Services Committee chair, said in a text message that a bill will be introduced during the 60-day legislative session that kicked off earlier this month.
If the Legislature approves, leaders said the plan would be to make the moves before the end of the year.
In the meantime, Nebraska’s child welfare watchdog, Jennifer Carter, said her office is continuing to investigate the allegations at Kearney along with the Ombudsman’s Office.
“It continues to be an all-hands-on-deck situation,” she said. “We have been reviewing tons of evidence, and we are still in that process.”
6 Comments
Great reporting, Sara. The proposals seem like a giant shell game to avoid the real problem, which is will the culture and staff change at the new facility? What happens to the predators that were at the YRTC? Are all the teenagers at the facility hardened criminals where prison is the answer, or do they need treatment for mental health issues? Is the governors commitment to kids restricted only to non-offender, healthy kids of a certain age? Apparently, his budget line items restrict their care to money while ignoring a number of child-care experts who are calling hime out.
“The proposals seem like a giant shell game to avoid the real problem, which is will the culture and staff change at the new facility?”
The real problem is not the facility, the staff, or the culture in these facilities–the real problem is that we too often defer to the “child-care experts” who refuse to believe that some young adults are incorrigible (or evil if you prefer) who will not and not ever respond positively to the experts’ “treatment programs.”
Sorry, most of these young adults who make it to YRTC cannot be saved by good thoughts, hope, or a better “treatment program” promoted by some “expert”. THAT’s the change in culture that must occur before these problems can be effectively addressed.
I would invite FFP to spend a day in YRTC. (I would warn that no female reporter should make the visit).
A FFP reporter would surely be shocked by the behaviors exhibited by YRTC inmates on a routine basis. In the end, both the staff and the inmates at YRTC know that the “program” there is simply a game to be played. No significant changes in behavior are expected and very few occur as a result of a detention at YRTC.
Let’s stop playing the game, and let’s stop paying for it.
Why are we moving teens that more than likely are suffering mental illness from Trauma into a prison? Why are we not taking their word for it and investigate while terminating the employees? Sounds rather ridiculous to move the teens into a prison!
I am a prison volunteer about to start a new program at NCYF in addition to our program at Community Corrections Center – Omaha, aka Work Release.
I wan to thank Sara and Flatwater Free Press for, as Paul Harvey uesed to say, “the rest of the story”.
NCYF under Warden Jansen and Asst Warden Whitlock have initiated some innovative programs in the past couple years to promote hearing, add structure to lives that have often not had any and to provide family reunification opportunities.
My concern is for the NCYF youth being moved to an adult facility. Some have long sentences and will eventually have this, but in the meantime what NCYF offers may not be available at RTC and the youth may backslide from gains they may be making.
Further concern is the impact on staff and incarcerated individuals at the remaining 7 NDCS facilities. Overcrowding is a serious issue. Moving 60 more people into those facilities compounds the impact of the Werk Ethics Camp (WEC) being given to ICE a few months ago.
Humans are humans, Stressed staff impacts stressed incarcerated populations which impact staff. The combination can become, for lack of a lesser word, “combustible”. People treated with respect and care learn to return it. It may not be instantaneous. But given time and the opportunity to learn how to do things differently and believe in oneself does have an impact. People may be broken, but rarely are they irredeemable and hopelessly broken.
I know, I have decades of experience watching it happen.
“People treated with respect and care learn to return it.”
Such pollyannish BS is bound to get you hurt, physically.
I too wish it were true but spending just 1 hour in YRTC and you will be dispelled of such wishful thinking. The extreme self-centeredness and impulsiveness (diagnose it as you wish) of the typical inmate leaves absolutely no capacity to recognize or return any act of “respect”, nor does it permit the development of the capacity to see beyond the inmate’s own chronic and dominating selfishness. Does any of this justify inhumane or inequitable treatment of inmates? No. But we must understand that the humanity in the context of a correctional facility is a one-way street flowing from staff to the inmate, with nearly NO hope or expectation that such treatment will be reciprocated or practiced in the cellblock.
I know too. I have years of experience dealing with the worst and others on that road. I wish you the best but your bizarre naivete is bound to get you hurt. PLEASE stay safe and never let your hopes for a better world blind you to the dangers.
If you all need insight from former employees that tried to raise these concerns a few years ago. I am one and know plenty. I would love to help with the restructuring. After obtaining additional education at the post graduate level.