New Report on Youth Detention in New Orleans

From our friends at Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana:

As the Hurricane Katrina anniversary approaches, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana is re-releasing Treated Like Trash, a 2006 report that detailed the stories of youth detained during the botched evacuations of the Youth Study Center and the Orleans Parish Prison. The original report included stories including teenagers so hungry after days without food that they ate what floated by in the water, skin peeling from sunburn, and a mother who did not know where her son was for weeks. Its release led to a commitment by the Orleans Parish Criminal Sheriff to never again hold youth in the juvenile justice system at OPP.

The updated report, which details the five-year community campaign that followed the tragedy, is known as Trash to Triumph, and celebrates the major steps that have been taken to improve conditions at YSC. While the City still has much more to do to meet expectations, Thursday morning’s press conference focused on the sense of hope many feel at this moment given the dedication of the new administration to youth in the city, as well as the progress that has been made in this arena to date.

“Although the work is far from over, the anniversary gives us the chance to recognize those who have improved the lives of youth in New Orleans,” said Dana Kaplan, Director of JJPL. “Community organizations, citizens groups, families and friends of the youth, and the youth themselves have led a successful movement for a reformed juvenile justice system, persevering in the face of adversity. The new Administration of the City has joined with us in pledging a commitment to further reform. While there is much work left to be done, we are extremely hopeful that, five years after the storm exposed the problems endemic to our justice system, we can finally work together for real change and real public safety.”

Councilmember Susan Guidry, whose district includes YSC, and Seung Hong, the Interim Director of the city’s Human Services Department, will be present to express their commitment to reform. Further recommendations from advocates include completing construction on a new best practice facility within the next two years and fully implementing mandated reforms to staffing, health services, education, and policies and procedures that resulted from the settlement of the federal lawsuit JJPL filed against the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board in 2007.

The full report is available online at http://jjpl.org/new/wp-content/uploads/2010/08/TRASH-TO-TRIUMPH-REDUCED.pdf.

Photo above by Abdul Aziz.

How Many New Orleans Mayoral Candidates Does it Take to Find Out That the Youth Study Center is a Prison?

For the past several years, the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana has been waging a campaign to close the Youth Study Center, a notorious youth prison located in Gentilly. The campaign has received extensive coverage in the Times-Picayune, and is one of the important issues facing our next mayor. Yet, at today's Mayoral debate, only one candidate had apparently even heard of the Center.

According to a transcript of the debate from the James Perry Mayoral Campaign:

Gina Warner, CEO of the Afterschool Partnership: “What is your position on the Youth Studies Center?”

Troy Henry: I am in favor of the Youth Studies Center. I am in favor of using the youth studies center in collaboration with all the revised library systems that are also being built. So we want to be smart and prudent about how we use our current resources today so where it makes sense to consolidate let’s do that but where it makes sense to keep them separate and individual, let’s do that. But we need to make sure we have the Youth Studies Center.

(Nervous laughter)

John Georges: I’m for them as well. We have to be about our facilities. Libraries are certainly one group. It’s all about budgeting and available dollars and the idea is to do like the board of regents … it’s also a budgetary issue.

(Nervous laughter)

Leslie Jacobs: I think it’s critically important for kids, our students to have a place to go outside of school. Schools have a $1.6 billion rebuilding plan, we need to look how to locate each of these youth studies centers inside our of our school buildings. I think they are important but given the budgetary crisis the more we can co locate with a library, school and other civic centers the easier it will be to staff them and the easier it will be to maintain them.”

(Nervous laughter)

Edwin Murray: I, too, am in support of youth study centers. I think it would be great if we could somehow figure out a way to put them in schools and figure out how to just keep the schools open a little longer and also use library systems across the city. It’s important also to try to work in in recreational activities some kind of way to make sure that after school Youth Study Centers to be involved as well to encourage kids in extracurricular activities

(Nervous laughter)

James Perry: I want to be clear because I think some folks misunderstood this issue. The Youth Studies Center is a jail. It is a prison. The subject of some very difficult litigation. Children have been imprisoned for long periods of time with no access to quality education at all. We need children to have access to education despite incarceration. If you are locked up for 23 hours of a 24 hour day there is no chance we can decrease the recidivism rate. It’s about how we define success. When it comes to juveniles in this system, making sure they have a real educational opportunity so that the prison they are in does not define the outcomes of the rest of their lives.

(Raucous Applause)


Photo by Abdul Aziz.

Come to City Hall to Stand up for Justice for New Orleans Youth

Show your support for justice for youth this Tuesday, November 10th, 9:30 AM at City Hall (1300 Perdido St).

For years, young people detained in New Orleans' detention centers have reported a wide variety of unsafe and inhumane conditions and the denial of basic services. Recently, the City of New Orleans and the Orleans Parish School Board reached an agreement with the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana to implement changes to the Youth Study Center that will dramatically improve conditions for youth housed at the juvenile detention center.

Now advocates must ensure that funds are allocated to support those improvements, as well as spent appropriately and with community input in the rebuilding efforts of the local youth detention facility.

Come out to City Hall and support the Juvenile Justice Project and other concerned activists in:
- Ensuring funds for rehabilitative and therapeutic programs and to meet young people's basic needs
- A new facility with clearly defined treatment spaces - and an end to the over-incarceration of New Orleans youth!

For more info, contact Bridgette Butler at Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, at 504-522-5437 xt. 246

Criminal Justice Reform Advocates Win Victory at Youth Study Center

Congratulations to the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana (JJPL) on their continued success in the fight for reform of the city's criminal justice system.

An article by Katy Reckdahl in today's Times-Picayune reports, "Juveniles at the Youth Study Center will no longer be subject to long hours of confinement, sporadic schooling, spotty medical care and inadequate meals. These improvements are spelled out in two proposed agreements involving the city, which runs the detention facility in Gentilly, and the Orleans Parish School Board, which is responsible for providing educational services to the detainees. The Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, which filed a federal lawsuit in December 2007 alleging unconstitutional conditions at the Youth Study Center, filed consent decrees in court on Monday after 22 months of negotiations with the city and the School Board."

For further evidence of how bad things have gotten at the facility, the article notes that - as part of the consent agreement: "Facility staff will create a new policy and procedures manual, to replace the one that was lost after the facility flooded."

Apparently, they needed a lawsuit to force them to actually state their policies in writing.

If you want to help JJPL continue this work, you have two opportunities this weekend.

You can buy Hornets tickets through a special offer listed on JJPL's website, and $5 of every ticket goes to support JJPL. The offer is here.

Or you can come to a car wash fundraiser sponsored by Young Adults Striving for Success (YASS) the youth group organized by JJPL. The fundraiser is this Saturday, from 10am to 2pm, at Hope Academy on 2437 Jena St.

Photo by Abdul Aziz.