Tag: Juvenile Justice
Who’s doing child welfare better than Louisiana? Here’s the answer.
Of all the children taken from their families in Louisiana in 2024, 93% did not allege sexual abuse or physical abuse. Far more common are cases in which family poverty is confused with “neglect.”
The classroom as first courtroom: Jada’s story
Jada and other Black girls often take the first steps toward the delinquency pipeline in the schoolroom, where teachers too often misread curiosity as sassiness—or as Louisiana law describes it, "willful disobedience."
The girlhood to prison pipeline: how Louisiana policy fails Black girls
The state of Louisiana is building a long-needed door for women leaving prison. But for girls leaving childhood detention, there is no threshold, much less a door.
To lead us, you must listen to us
A message to all city leaders and adults from “The Seven That Make It Happen,” a youth council of Black teenagers ages 16 and 17, who are detained pre-trial in Orleans Parish’s juvenile jail
Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice to end contract with troubled Jackson Parish jail
Invoices show that Jackson charged OJJ nearly $2 million dollars over the past year to house juveniles in the jail, despite grave allegations of abuse and mistreatment.
Behind The Lens episode 227: ‘There’s no real public oversight’
Nick Chrastil on The Lens' lawsuit against the state Office of Juvenile Justice for public records related to its $9.5m emergency staffing contract. And author Matthew Kincaid joins us to talk about his new book: Freedom Teaching.
Behind The Lens episode 220: ‘Mothers want their kids out of there’
This week on Behind The Lens, Jackson Parish’s is housing kids awaiting adjudication in a detention center unlicensed to do so and state A through F letter grades are due out soon.
Jackson Parish holding pre-trial youth in unlicensed juvenile jail
Despite lacking a required DCFS license, Jackson’s detention center is housing kids awaiting adjudication — and collecting roughly $200 a day per kid from surrounding parishes
‘Another step backwards’: $9.5 million private security contract for Louisiana youth prisons raises eyebrows
OJJ pays $75 per hour to staffing company for guards. Critics say that contractor seems to be “enriching themselves on the backs of Louisiana's teenagers and taxpayers’
