The Advocate. November 27, 2022.
Editorial: Off to the stables with you? Louisiana juvenile justice’s Biblical failures
Just in time for Christmas, Louisiana has no room in the inn for our most troubled children.
Not even at Angola, the functional equivalent of the stables of Bethlehem long ago, for those on the fringes of society.
Officials of the Office of Juvenile Justice notified judges and district attorneys around the state that state facilities are out of room.
“We write to tell you that the Office of Juvenile Justice is at full bed capacity with both our secure and nonsecure beds,” agency officials said in the Nov. 10 letter, which The Advocate ' The Times-Picayune obtained. “Until OJJ can gain momentum to increase our state’s bed space, we cannot safely accept more youth into the agency’s custody.”
The bed shortage is blamed partly on damage to a secure facility for high-risk youths near Monroe that is still undergoing repairs from a massive riot. But the letter emphasized that the lack of space is affecting both secure and nonsecure facilities, the latter including group homes and other less-restrictive destinations for youth who run afoul of the law.
OJJ’s leadership also attributed the problem to an excess of young offenders serving so-called extensive stays in agency custody when they could legally be released to less-restrictive programs.
Duh, is the something less than respectful response from advocates who have long clamored for alternatives to juvie jails.
“It is way past time … to send kids home, the majority of whom are in prison for nonviolent offenses. It’s also unfortunate that it took a crisis to force the state’s hand,″ said Gina Womack, director of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, an advocacy group. We agree.
Across the state, there is a shortage of not only the less-restrictive places to put troubled youth, but also neighborhood-based support that should be where many young people are reached at an age when it is still possible to steer kids onto more constructive paths.
Yet individual cases are rarely that simple. Before New Orleans’ City Council, Juvenile Court Judge Ranord Darensburg noted judges decide to send youths to state detention only after careful consideration.
″Once a determination is made that a child should be placed into secure care, that’s a determination that needs to be upheld, because that speaks to the safety of the community and our ability to administer justice for everybody in the community,″ Darensburg said.
There are similar concerns in Lafayette and Baton Rouge. East Baton Rouge Parish District Attorney Hillar Moore said last month that the parish’s Juvenile Detention Center reached its capacity of 36 youths with the arrest of two teenagers in the fatal shooting of a woman on Jefferson Highway.
And if there are juveniles in the jail population who might — might, we emphasize — be sent home for local programs, how much support will those agencies and nonprofits get for a surge of clients?
And finally, the conditions at the more restrictive facilities operated by the state are hardly encouraging. Advocates, as well as federal officials, continue to worry about the move of some youths to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, although Gov. John Bel Edwards and OJJ promised the renovated Death Row building is safe for juveniles to be housed there.
Amid the system’s deepening crisis, the top official at OJJ retired. That was after a New York Times report last month found that a youth jail in Red River Parish under contract with the Office of Juvenile Justice has been plagued by abuse and suicide attempts among teens incarcerated there.
We support the premise that young offenders are redeemable, but this is difficult work under the best of circumstances. And it’s nigh-impossible when there is no more room at the inn.
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