Amid the fallout of yet another escape and a at the embattled Bridge City Center for Youth in Jefferson Parish, officials are discussing moving 30 juvenile offenders to a shuttered Baker facility that has temporarily housed female inmates since the 2016 flood.
For months, officials with the Office of Juvenile Justice have struggled to address ongoing problems at the Bridge City campus, where more than a dozen juveniles have escaped over the past year and a halfΒ β in some cases injuring staff.
Just last Thursday , prompting Jefferson Parish Sheriff's deputies and SWAT members to be sent in to restore order, authorities said. Two of the youths and a Justice Center employee were injured and taken to a hospital for treatment.
That same same day .
It marked a tipping point, according to state Sen. Pat Connick, R-Marrero.Β
Connick said he and other local representatives met with Gov. John Bel Edwards on Friday to discuss possible solutions.
"The initial problem is the Bridge City Center is not designed to house these juvenile offenders," Connick said. "Securityβs not there. As a result, the juveniles are escaping. They know how to escape from the facility and they tell their friends."
At the meeting, an OJJ representative suggested using the Jetson Center for Youth in Baker as a short-term solution to the escalating violence, Connick said. Although female inmates from the Louisiana Correctional Center for Women have been housed at Jetson since the 2016 flood destroyed their campus, a wing of the facility can be blocked off to house 30 juvenile offenders, Connick said.
It would take about 3 months to renovate the wing, Connick said he was told. And the arrangement would be more effective than the open-floor dormitory concept at the Bridge City facility that facilitates dysfunction, he said.
A spokesperson for the OJJ said that "at this time, OJJ does not have any immediate plans to transfer any youths that are in our custody to Jetson Center for Youth."
During legislative hearings this year OJJ Deputy Secretary Bill Sommers proposed using Jetson for a limited purpose to temporarily house young people new to the juvenile justice system so they could go through various evaluations and risk assessments, .
Baton Rouge-area officials responded cautiously Monday afternoon.
While Baker Mayor Darnell Waites declined to comment, a spokesperson for Baton Rouge President Sharon Weston Broome said the office is "interested to learn more about the proposal.β
'Obsolete, unsafe, and costly'
The Baker facility has its own complex history that led to its abrupt closure in 2014.Β
Jetson, which opened in the 1940s, was plagued with allegations of brutality and abuse against the boysΒ β generally between the ages of 12 and 20 years oldΒ β who were serving time there. The situation became so dire that in 2008, the Legislature voted to close it. But by 2009, OJJ had moved forward with its reform effort, including a proposal to make Jetson a smaller, regional facility. As a result, the Legislature voted to keep it open.
When the prison's doors finally closed in 2014, it was because officials deemed it an βobsolete, unsafe, and costly physical plantβ that βdoes not fit into our reform efforts.βΒ
Those deficiencies included a structural setup that did not fit the therapeutic method of treating delinquent teens the agency began using in the 2000s called the Louisiana Model for Secure Care. The facility also had problems retaining staff and training new staff, officials said at the time.
LAMOD is an offshoot of the nationally recognized Missouri Model that favors therapy and family involvement over running a juvenile facility like an adult prison and punishing its juvenile offenders.
A similar dormitory configuration that has caused problems at the current Bridge City campus also prevented staff from supervising the juveniles housed at Jetson. Before it was shuttered the prison held 76 inmates and 154 employees.
A short-term solution
In the meantime, the state has steered more manpower to Bridge City and another juvenile secure care center in an attempt to quell repeated uprisings as a quick fix solution.Β
On Friday,Β state police and the Department of Corrections to immediately assign personnel to assist with staffing shortages at Bridge City and Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe, where a brawl broke out last week. The reinforcements, including state police troopers and probation and parole officers, began securing the perimeter of the facilities last Friday evening.
βOur goal is to make certain the unfortunate incidents that recently occurred at both facilities will not be repeated," Edwards said. "It is an urgent situation, and this immediate solution will be in place for as long as necessary as we work to put a long term staffing plan in place to ensure the safety of the youth who have been entrusted to our care as well as the staff. We are in conversations about the longer term solution and nothing is off the table."
Sommers said in a statement that he acknowledged his office is "facing some major challenges with staff and the Bridge City center itself, but we are working every day to address them."Β