House panel renames Jetson

• By JORDAN BLUM
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Jun 4, 2009 - Page: 8A

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Legislation to convert the troubled Jetson Center for Youth into the renamed Capital Area Center for Youth passed  House committee on Wednesday.

The action is required to avoid the closure of Jetson at the end of the month, which was approved last year through legislation intended to jumpstart juvenile care reform.

Senate Bill 302 by Sen. Sharon Broome, D-Baton Rouge, is designed to help reshape the Jetson facility, near Baker, from a prison-like atmosphere plagued with abuse allegations into a smaller, more treatment-oriented facility.

“We’re making progress toward reform,” Broome said of Jetson and the legislation that now heads to the House floor. “We still haven’t reached our ultimate goal.”

“It’s a different place than it was six months ago,” said Mary Livers, deputy secretary of the state office of juvenile justice. “It’s therapeutic. Kids are getting treatment. It’s much safer.”

Skeptical supporters during the two-hour House Judiciary Committee debate asked out loud if the legislation meant real change or simply a name change.

“It looks suspiciously like the old Jetson,” said Gina Womack, director of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children. “There’s still lots of problems in the facilities.”

There is little evidence a renamed Jetson will be anything more than a “youth prison,” Womack said.

Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, said the legislation must do more to ensure tangible progress.

“Let’s not just call it a new name,” she said. “Let’s talk about what it entails.”

Kaplan and state Rep. Rosalind Jones, D-Monroe, said the downsizing of Jetson resulted in a shell game that now has unacceptable overcrowding at the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe.

Before the reform efforts in 2008, Jetson held more than 200 juvenile delinquents. Jetson now has fewer than 80 youth offenders. Jetson is a secure care facility for male juveniles

The state’s other juvenile offender center is the Bridge City Center for Youth in New Orleans.