Panel worries problems of Jetson being re-created

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: Jun 27, 2008 - Page: 1A - UPDATED: 12:05 a.m.

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Members of a state commission grilled the head of the Office of Youth Development to determine if he is creating another Jetson — a juvenile prison rife with problems — by moving Jetson offenders to a juvenile prison in Monroe.

Jetson, meanwhile, remains afflicted by violence, according to testimony Thursday at the Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission meeting.

“Are we just moving the problem? Will I have to file another bill in the next session — this time to close Swanson,” state Sen. Donald Cravins Jr., D-Opelousas, asked Richard Thompson, who heads OYD.

“Is Swanson going to be the next Jetson?” Cravins asked.

Cravins, a commission member, authored Senate Bill 749, which is awaiting action by the governor. If approved, the bill calls for the closure of Jetson Center for Youth by November 2009.

The bill also would allow OYD to build three smaller, regional facilities.

Jetson, which is near Baker, has been plagued by violence and brutality for years, and apparently that is still the case.

“We have some concerns about what’s happening out there now,” Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, testified.

“We’ve talked to about 60 kids over the last few months,” Kaplan said of conversations over hotline phones that connect Jetson to the New Orleans offices of JJPL, which provides legal services to incarcerated juveniles.

She said Jetson teenagers have reported an increase in the use of shackles, strip searches and full-body cavity searches after visits from family members.

“If they refuse the full-body cavity search, they can’t have visitors for 60 days,” Kaplan said.

She also said there was an increase in Jetson staff physically threatening the juveniles as well as having them arrested for incidents that occur at Jetson.

The state’s three juvenile prisons — Jetson, Swanson and Bridge City — were sued by the U.S. Department of Justice, JJPL and others in the late 1990s for not providing a safe environment to juvenile law breakers as well as providing inadequate educational and health services.