Lawmakers in Louisiana passed new restrictions on the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities following an investigation by ProPublica, The Marshall Project, and NBC News into the harsh conditions in a youth lockup.
According to advocates, the law, which will go into effect on August 1, marked the first time lawmakers in Louisiana, known as the world's incarceration capital, had put limits on solitary confinement for the youth.
The news organizations' investigation found that in one of Louisiana's facilities, the Acadiana Center for Youth at St. Martinville, boys as young as 14 years old were held in solitary confinement virtually around the clock for weeks.
Teens received no education for months while they were locked up
The boys in the youth lockup were forced to sleep on the floor in the dark and were shackled when they left their cells to shower. The teens received no education for months in this facility, which opened last summer, violating federal and state law.
One expert even said that the conditions were so severe in the facility that they amounted to "child abuse." The facility in St. Martinville opened despite an ongoing debate about the dangers of solitary confinement in juvenile facilities in Louisiana. This controversy started in 2019 after two teenagers died by suicide in solitary confinement in a different facility within three days.
Rep. Royce Duplessis, the bill's sponsor and a New Orleans Democrat, said he did not think the legislation would have been successful without reporting from ProPublica, NBC News, and The Marshall Project, which brought crucial attention to the conditions in the state's juvenile facilities.
Duplessis said that it showed the public and legislators that some things were happening that nobody should be proud of. He added that it showed they needed to make some changes. Advocates said the new law, signed by Democratic Governor John Bel Edwards on June 16, will improve conditions at facilities like the one in St. Martinville.
Rachel Gassert, the policy director at the Louisiana Center for Children's Rights, said that she is not expecting this to be a panacea, but the law makes a clear statement about what is expected of them, and that is something that has not been there before. She added that, unlike agency policy, it could not be changed behind closed doors by political appointees.
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New law limits youth to no more than eight hours in isolation
The new law passed in Louisiana places strict constraints on how the state juvenile justice agency can use solitary confinement on young people, limiting the youth to no more than eight hours in isolation unless they continue to pose a physical threat to others or themselves.
The agency is also required to check on the children's mental health and to notify their parents or guardians within the first hours of being placed in solitary confinement. The law in Louisiana additionally compels the agency to better track and report the use of isolation in its facilities.
According to KPLC TV, Louisiana lawmakers also recently passed HB460, which allows the reallocation of juvenile justice funds at the parish level to invest in crime prevention.
