Louisiana Gov. Jeff Landry plans to reopen a Baton Rouge-area youth prison shuttered a little over a decade ago with support at the time from Democrats and Republicans, the Louisiana Illuminator reports. Landry and state legislators have reshuffled at least $42.4 million over the past week and directed it toward reopening the Jetson Center for Youth. The governor is also pushing for an additional $12.7 million to add staff to Jetson, though lawmakers haven’t signed off on that money yet. The funding would allow the Office of Juvenile Justice to put up to 44 youth on Jetson’s campus in a matter of months and to start building a brand new facility with space for up to 72 young people on the site over the next two years. The idea to reopen Jetson came about during former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ term and is in keeping with Landry’s push to dramatically expand the capacity of the state’s youth prisons and jails. In all, lawmakers approved the opening of four new and expanded juvenile justice facilities, including Jetson, this month. They will add 264 beds for incarcerated youth across the state over the next two years.
Sheriffs and district attorneys have complained about not having enough places to house young people going through the juvenile court system in Louisiana. Some localities have resorted to sending incarcerated minors to facilities outside of the state. Yet the push to ramp up juvenile prison and jail capacity comes at a time when crime is declining across the U.S. and New Orleans, which is reporting a drop in major crimes over the last three years, including double-digit declines in homicides, carjackings and non-fatal shootings since last year. In spite of that decrease, the number of minors in juvenile prisons continues to rise. At the end of 2024, the number of youth in the state’s secure care custody was 8 percent higher than at year-end 2023 and 16 percent higher than 2022. Nearly all incarcerated youth in Louisiana are male (91 percent) and most are Black (79 percent). Adding 44 beds at Jetson in the short term could expand the state’s incarcerated youth population by almost 10 percent. About 480 youth were in the state system at the end of 2024, according to state data. Under Landry’s budget, spending on juvenile justice services would rise by $19.5 million next year, from $172.7 million this year to $197.9 million.
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