Every time the Louisiana legislature goes into session, I think about the parents who first walked through the doors of our organization 25 years ago, seeking help for their children.
They came to us because their children were being suspended, arrested, or locked up. They were scared. They were ashamed. And they felt alone.
The more I talked to them, the clearer it became: the problem wasn’t their parenting. The problem was a system designed to punish children instead of supporting them. From parents whose children had been placed in secure care by a juvenile court judge, we heard stories of an acutely violent lockup called the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth.
Twenty‑five years later, I wish I could say things look different.
But here we are again in 2026, watching lawmakers debate bills that only tinker with the same behemoth of a system that has been failing our children for generations. We are once again seeing new youth justice proposals that address procedures, reports, and oversight at best, and at worst, attempt to treat children more like adults.
What’s always missing is the one thing our kids actually need: care.
This is the same sad story I’ve watched over the last two and a half decades, where Louisiana continues to struggle because we continue to invest in our fears, instead of the future we want to see for our children.
We keep pouring money into a failed and broken youth prison system while children go without mental health care and without supportive schools, and while their families struggle to pay their bills. We ignore the evidence-based approaches and the experts who tell us the real solution is prevention and rehabilitation, not punishment.
As a mother of three Black children and two grandsons, I know what it feels like to hear these stories from parents and realize, “This could be me.” I’ve said it many times.
I didn’t come to this work because I had some grand calling. I came because I needed a job. I stayed because once I heard what families were up against—children beaten, ignored, and written off—I couldn’t walk away.
And after all this time, what I’ve learned is simple: families are powerful. When parents understand the system and come together, they can change things. Early on, our families helped close Tallulah, one of the most notoriously abusive youth prisons in the country. We worked to help reduce secure-care numbers from 2,000 incarcerated youth in the 1990s to less than 500 by 2006.
In 2003, we helped pass the Juvenile Justice Reform Act— a law that was essentially a roadmap to transforming the youth justice system into a holistic model of care. But the state never implemented it. The Reform Act was a roadmap for our state, grounded in all of the evidence-based solutions we know work: community‑based support, restorative practices, mental health care, and keeping kids close to home.
But instead of investing in what works, Louisiana keeps doing the same thing over and over: reacting with more punishment. When something goes wrong in a facility, the answer is: build another one. When young people make mistakes—mistakes other kids in better‑resourced communities are allowed to grow out of—the answer is: lock them up. And every time, families pay the price—and frankly, so does our community as a whole.
I wish lawmakers would come and sit in one of our parent meetings and hear what we hear. The fear. The exhaustion. The love. Parents who work two, three jobs trying to keep their kids safe.
Grandmothers raising children on fixed incomes. Families who have been told in a thousand ways that their child is a problem—when what they actually have is a need.
The truth is: there is nothing wrong with our children. What’s wrong is a state that refuses to see their potential. If Louisiana wants safer communities, the path is not more punishment.
The path is making sure children have access to therapists instead of more police officers. It’s making sure families have support before they’re in crisis. It’s making sure schools help kids succeed instead of pushing them out. It’s listening to young people and believing in their dreams.
Our kids want what every kid wants: to be seen, to be safe, to be allowed to grow up. They want hope. They want opportunity. They want someone to believe they’re more than the worst thing they’ve ever done.
As we mark 25 years of FFLIC’s work, I’m proud of what families have built. I’ve watched parents who once felt powerless walk into the Capitol and demand change. I’ve watched young people find their voices and fight for a future they deserve. I’ve watched communities come together and refuse to accept that incarceration is normal.
But I am also tired — tired of watching lawmakers ignore the very roadmap families created for them. Tired of watching our children carry the weight of systems that were never designed to help them.
This session, and every session each year, Louisiana has a choice. We can keep repeating the same cycle of blame and punishment — or we can finally listen to the research and the people who have been telling the truth for decades: parents, youth, and families directly impacted by these systems.
We don’t need more prisons. We don’t need more finger‑pointing. We need leadership that believes in our children as much as their families do.
Twenty‑five years in, I still believe a better Louisiana is possible. But only if we stop writing off our kids and start building a state that lets them grow and thrive.
Gina Womack is executive director of FFLIC, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children, a Louisiana nonprofit that is celebrating a quarter century of fighting for youth justice this year.
