Louisiana's infamous Angola prison will now lock up children.

[Nevilledog]

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Officials will incarcerate about 2 dozen children inside the old death row of Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. Children as young as 10 years old will sleep in windowless cells with floor-to-ceiling metal bars that lock them in.

motherjones.com
Louisiana's infamous Angola prison will now lock up children.
In windowless cells in the former death row ward
4:22 PM · Sep 27, 2022

https://www.motherjones.com/crime-justice/2022/09/louisianas-infamous-angola-prison-will-now-lock-up-children/


In the coming days, Louisiana officials will incarcerate about two dozen children inside the old death row of Louisiana State Penitentiary, also called Angola, a massive maximum security prison for adult men that was once notorious for its violence.

Children as young as 10 with a history of assault may be transferred from their current juvenile correctional facilities to the former death row, where they will sleep in windowless cells with floor-to-ceiling metal bars that lock them in. The conditions are more punitive than those at the state’s high-security juvenile facilities, where kids normally sleep in dorms. The Office of Juvenile Justice will house the children at Angola temporarily while finishing construction on another place to detain them.

A judge stated that incarcerating kids at Angola would likely traumatize them, but that government officials had nowhere better to keep the kids.

Several Louisiana law clinics and the ACLU sued to try to stop the transfers, arguing that keeping children at the adult prison—even temporarily—was unconstitutional and psychologically harmful, and that it might increase their risk of suicide. Though the kids will be housed separately from the adult men, the facility “is going to scream ‘prison’” to them, Vincent Schiraldi, a juvenile justice expert for the plaintiffs and the former commissioner of the New York City Department of Correction, told the court.

But on Friday, Chief District Judge Shelly Dick reluctantly signed off on the plan, stating that incarcerating kids at Angola would potentially be “traumatizing” for them, but that government officials had nowhere better to keep the kids, who pose security risks. “The prospect of putting a teenager to bed at night in a locked cell behind razor wire surrounded by swamps at Angola is disturbing,” the judge wrote. But “the threat of harm these youngsters present to themselves, and others, is intolerable.”

*snip*

[yankee87]

1. The school to prison pipeline

What chance do children have when we have private prisons that need to be filled per contract and children that are treated as criminals for every discretion.
But for the grace of God go I.

[rampartc]

2. these "children" are easily escaping bridge city (juvy facility)

and are murdering, mugging and carjacking with impunity.

the repeat offenders are being held in angola until an alternative can be prepared

sorry, neville, but this is a necessary step proposed by john bel edwards and widely approved (demanded) by law abiding citizens of new orleans including me.

[Nevilledog]

3. Not going to get my acceptance on this one.

There's always a better way, there's just not the will to do it.

[Hermit-The-Prog]

4. Angola was designed to be inhumane. We can do better.

Prison should be for the protection of society, not for the torture of its inmates.

[rampartc]

5. i agree whole heartedly

these are children who have committed adult crimes and are NOT being held in their own section of the jail.

we do need to reform the way all prisoners are kept, and protect them from brutality and sexual predators. education and drug rehab must be available as well.

[scarletlib]

6. Hint: build a more secure facility for these children and provide needed mental health & other

services. More humane and a money saver in the long run. Since this is a state that believes every child is precious from the moment of conception how about proving it by taking care of the ones already out of the womb.