State: Juvenile justice ‘reform’ not started yet

• By SANDY DAVIS
• Advocate staff writer
• Published: May 19, 2009 - Page: 7A

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Members of a state commission trying to reform the state’s juvenile justice system said Monday they were discouraged after learning that money that should be directed to reform efforts is instead going for more beds at juvenile prisons.

Mary Livers, deputy secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice, said some of the money freed by downsizing Jetson Center for Youth near Baker was used to increase bed space at Swanson Center for Youth near Monroe.

Livers made the comments during a hearing of the Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission at the state Capitol.

Jetson was downsized as part of a statewide reform effort so that a new, therapeutic treatment program could be implemented at the site.

Livers said the facility will now be a smaller, regionalized facility for a maximum of 99 children.

Before the reform efforts in 2008, Jetson held more than 200 juvenile delinquents.

On Monday, there were 67 teenagers at Jetson and 235 at Swanson, Livers said.

The commission has said it wanted any savings gained from closing or reducing the size of a facility to go back into the reform effort, particularly by investing money in community-based programs that would give, among other things, judges an alternative to locking up children who run afoul of the law.

But Livers said that when the agency reduced the size of Jetson, the agency needed more secure-care bed space.

“We felt like when we rolled out our intentions in regards to reducing the census at Jetson that we needed to increase the availability of secure beds at Swanson,” Livers said.

Commissioners Raymond Jetson and Lt. Gov. Mitch Landrieu, who is chairman of the commission, both said they were disappointed by the news.

Jetson said the agency was simply moving the old problems of Jetson Center for Youth to Swanson. Jetson Center for Youth was named after Louis Jetson, the father of Raymond Jetson.

“We’ve moved the shells to another part of the state,” Raymond Jetson said. “That’s my perception of what happened.”