If Anyone Deserves a Second Chance, It’s Young People
By Amaya Rosser
Southern University student and Louisiana Progress College Fellow
Growing up in Memphis, Tennessee, which has a high crime rate, I was always aware of the juvenile justice system and some of the effects it can have on young people. And since both of my parents are high-ranking police officers, they also encouraged me to learn about the court system and how it can impact my life. Watching my parents work with juvenile offenders and learning about the many things these young people experience made me interested in the juvenile reentry process in Louisiana, now that I live here as a student at Southern University in Baton Rouge.
Many people tend to think negatively about young people because of some of the crimes they’ve committed, but they need our help as a society to grow and learn from the mistakes they’ve made so they can make better decisions in the future. Over my past few years living in Louisiana, I've seen many new laws get passed that affect young people who are involved in the criminal justice system, which is why I wanted to study juvenile reentry as part of my fellowship with Louisiana Progress.
Several aspects of this larger topic grabbed my attention, including the fines and fees associated with the juvenile justice system, the facilities young people are detained in, and understanding how other states are helping young people stay out of the system. I found that these three things are important factors in truly understanding juvenile reentry and how the system in Louisiana could be changed for the better.
I began my research by looking into potential fees that juveniles have to pay when they are released from incarceration. I was surprised to find out that, thanks to a law passed in the state legislature a few years ago, they don’t have to pay any fees. The only fees associated with juvenile reentry are lawyer fees, unless the juvenile committed a robbery, in which case they have to repay the cost of what they stole. Since that didn’t turn out to be a fruitful path to follow, I turned my attention to some of those other factors I was interested in.
An article from 2022 by The Marshall Project titled “No Light. No Nothing. Inside Louisiana’s Harshest Juvenile Lockup,” also sparked my interest because of how it described the impact that juvenile detention centers have on youth who are incarcerated there. The article focuses on the story of a juvenile detention facility in St. Martinville, Louisiana, where a 15-year-old was being kept in 24-hour solitary confinement without access to education materials or his court-ordered substance-abuse counseling. In fact, none of the young people in this facility were getting the rehabilitation services they needed for successful reentry into society.
Fortunately, another recent Louisiana law placed some common-sense limits on how long juveniles can be held in solitary confinement. Nonetheless, problems with juvenile solitary confinement still persist. The Louisiana Quarterly Juvenile Justice report indicates that in 2023, 434 youth were in secure custody, with 406 of them in non-secure custody and 29 in Families in Need of Service custody.
In states like Delaware, Missouri, and Ohio, juvenile reentry seems to be progressing in a positive direction. In 2014, the governor of Delaware organized the Youth Reentry Education Task Force. This task force focused on improving reentry education for young people who are leaving juvenile facilities.
In the 1970s, Missouri instituted juvenile justice reforms that have become known as the Missouri Miracle. A key part of the Missouri Miracle is an emphasis on small facilities that can house 10-30 juveniles, and they are located throughout the state so incarcerated kids can stay as close to home as possible. These facilities only have eight total isolation rooms combined, and those are only used for emergency situations. The facilities are also staffed by trained educators who work in teams with small groups of kids. Missouri’s approach has led to a juvenile recidivism rate lower than 8% and, similarly, fewer than 8% of incarcerated kids end up going to adult prison.
Ohio developed a system of community based alternatives to incarceration called RECLAIM Ohio. In 1991, Ohio’s state officials recognized that overcrowding in the state’s juvenile facilities were causing major problems with rehabilitation and reentry, so they developed the RECLAIM Ohio program. This program provides courts with financial incentives to keep less serious juvenile offenders in their local communities for treatment, instead of relying on incarceration. In a year's time, they were able to serve more than 8,600 kids through local programs.
I also connected with the staff at the Louisiana Center for Children's Rights. They told me about their experiences with Louisiana’s juvenile justice system and the major difficulties they come across while trying to help incarcerated youth. The biggest gap they see in the reentry system is the lack of resources to help young people get reintegrated into society upon release, as well as a lack of mental health services while they are incarcerated. They felt that juveniles don't get the help they need while in the system, so when they’re released they aren’t fully rehabilitated. They also talked about legal barriers, like how juveniles are given a probationary period to successfully reintegrate into society, which is difficult because, depending on the complications they face, reentry can be incredibly difficult.
I believe Louisiana needs a program that provides young people who are incarcerated with different care based on their personal needs. Overcrowding in Louisiana’s juvenile justice system makes it difficult for young people to get the care they need. If Louisiana were to implement a more personalized strategy, it could reshape its juvenile justice system into one that prioritizes rehabilitation over punishment. Louisiana legislators should reconsider methods that go beyond punishment and advocate for policies that make justice more about opportunity for kids who end up in the system.
