Children in Louisiana’s juvenile justice system who are housed in a former death row building at the state’s adult prison are enduring extreme heat and isolation that advocates say could lead to severe harm, according to a newly filed federal lawsuit. The American Civil Liberties Union says the heat index in the area has been above 88 degrees F since late May, and the ongoing heat wave has pushed that index well into the triple digits. Advocates are asking a federal judge to take emergency action to immediately transfer all juveniles out of the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an adult maximum-security prison known as Angola, and into children’s facilities, CNN reports. They also asked that the state stop sending juveniles to Angola. The children, mostly Black boys, are suffering psychologically with little or no mental health care and inadequate schooling and are being placed in solitary confinement for 72 hours upon arrival, according to the ACLU. In a declaration, one juvenile said, “The past two days, I have been alone in my cell all day. I was not allowed to come out except to shower and I was not allowed to talk to anyone,” he said.
Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards announced last July the state would start sending children to Angola and said at the time the transfers to Angola were temporary while they worked on renovations and improvements at another facility. Concerned about this decision, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention reached out to Edwards to offer support in finding safe and appropriate facilities for the children, the office’s administrator Liz Ryan said in a late 2022 statement. “It is now evident that the state had no intention of considering other alternatives, but were instead determined to move these youth to Angola as a way of ‘getting rid’ of what they see as the problem – a group of high-risk youth with very complex needs,” the statement reads. Louisiana officials had initially said the use of Angola for juveniles would end in Spring 2023, but that deadline has now been pushed back to November. The lawsuit was brought by the ACLU National Prison Project, the ACLU of Louisiana, the Claiborne Firm and Fair Fight Initiative, the Southern Poverty Law Center, and attorneys Chris Murell and David Shanies.
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