The Louisiana state Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) has authorized the use of mace and pepper spray in local juvenile detention facilities, The Lens reports. A new state law took effect on July 1 that put OJJ in charge of licensing and regulating all detention facilities. Before then, it was under the authority of the state Department of Children & Family Services. Soon after the shift, newly appointed OJJ director Kenneth “Kenny” Loftin implemented an emergency rule change allowing staff in those juvenile-detention facilities to use “chemical agents” – defined as “any product… which is dispensed by means of an aerosol spray to control an individual’s combative and/or restive behavior. Under DCFS, staff in detention facilities were barred from using any “chemical restraints,” including pepper spray and mace. Loftin’s move has drawn sharp criticism from youth advocates and attorneys. “We have this new oversight agency who suddenly needs to put out emergency rules — rules that bypass the legislative process and bypass a lot of public oversight,” said Aaron Clark-Rizzio, with Louisiana Center for Children’s Rights. “It just starts looking very much like you want and intend to mistreat children inside jails, which we know in this state are full of children who are predominantly and Black and brown.”
OJJ had already sanctioned the use of mace and pepper spray in its long-term “secure care” facilities, which hold teens who have been convicted and put into state custody. But even there, its use was criticized by advocates – and the kids themselves. At the Jackson Parish Detention Center, guards would use pepper spray in response to minor verbal altercations, said one young man who spoke with The Lens. He described being sprayed indiscriminately while in OJJ custody in Jackson last summer. Each guard carries an orange can of pepper spray, he said, so if a kid talked back, a guard might lift his hand and spray into the child’s face, he said. “It’ll make you feel violated, it’ll make you feel wronged, it’ll make you humiliated, it’ll mess your mind up,” he said. “This is like a torture thing.”
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