Young detainees in Angola allege abuse by guards and prolonged confinement in trial

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An incarcerated youth said guards at a controversial juvenile justice center recently opened on the grounds of the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola repeatedly beat youths and used the mace to restrain them. The building has also been locked down for days, where young people are only allowed out of their cells to take showers, he said.

The incarcerated 15-year-old is identified by the pseudonym Daniel D. in court documents filed Thursday,

A boy hit a guard. Staff knocked him down and punched him, Daniel said in the court filing. The staff started to macerate all of us. Nobody else had hit any of the guards but they were killing us all. The staff were hitting the first boy while he was on the floor getting a massage.

[After another violent incident], we were not able to leave our cells at all during those 3 or 4 days except to use the showers, he said in a written statement. About 3 or 4 times our whole pod got locked and we can’t leave our cells except to shower. They would keep us locked up all weekend.

Daniel and another boy detained at Angola’s new juvenile facility have requested to join an ongoing lawsuit regarding that facility filed in federal court in Baton Rouge.

Civil rights lawyers are challenging Gov. John Bel Edwards’ decision to house minors and young adults in Angola’s field juvenile justice system, one of the largest maximum-security prisons for adults in the country. country.

Testimonies from Daniel and another boy, a 17-year-old identified as Edward E., are the first public accounts of life inside the new facility since it opened in October.

The Office of Juvenile Justice could not be reached for comment on Friday and did not respond to previous questions about the trial sent to its communications director over the past month.

Cold showers, limited education and frequent lockdowns

Angola’s juvenile facility has detained seven to eight minors and young adults since October whom state officials deemed too disruptive to stay at other secure campuses in the state’s juvenile justice system. Juvenile justice staff said juvenile detainees in Angola had contributed to riots, peer violence, attacks on guards and escapes to other facilities. Over time, the group of incarcerated youths should rotate, meaning a different youth will enter and exit the building, depending on the needs of the juvenile justice system.

Child protection advocates and civil rights lawyers argue that the Angolan facility, which previously housed adults on death row, is misaligned with the mission of the juvenile justice system. Its youth facilities are meant to be therapeutic and not punitive like adult prisons. Placing young people in adult prison could not only interfere with their rehabilitation, but also contribute to suicidal thoughts and self-harm, they said. Lawyers have also raised questions about whether adequate education and medical care are being offered.

What Daniel and Edward described also paints a different picture than what juvenile justice officials presented at an initial hearing in September.

State officials have played down the use of solitary confinement and lockdowns, saying young people would mostly only be confined to their cells when sleeping. They told Judge Shelly Dick that the therapeutic and educational services provided in a traditional juvenile justice facility would also be available in Angola.

But Daniel and Edward said the resources they had received at other institutions were lacking. Daniel said he no longer had access to drug treatment and Edward complained about schooling. He said there is only one permanent teacher for every eight youngsters incarcerated in Angola.

We all get the same work and assignments, even though we’re at different grade levels, except for the work we do on study buddies’ devices, Edward wrote. I was given work from an 8th grade ELA workbook [even though I am in the 10th grade].

Every day they lock us in our cell at 5 p.m. We don’t go out until around 6:45 the next morning, writes Daniel. During school days, we are locked in our cell about five times during the day before 5:00 p.m.

In previous statements, the Bureau of Juvenile Justice had also stressed that its own staff, and not adult prison staff, would run the facility. But Daniel described Department of Corrections staff, adult prison guards, as ubiquitous. I see DOC guards every day. Whenever there is a fight between children and staff, the DOC responds, he said. When the DOC guards arrive, all of the OJJ personnel say the situation is out of their control and anything the DOC says is fine.

We were 8 children in the room. Only one youth had hit the goalkeeper. DOC ordered everyone off the wall. The DOC guards grabbed me and twisted my arm, Daniel wrote. They hurt me. I was not part of the fight. Daniel also complained about the physical condition of the facility in Angola. He said there was no hot water for showers when it was cold outside and the electricity was out when it was raining. He also said he was forced to brush his teeth with water from moldy faucets and sinks. When there is a power cut after a rain, we stay locked in our cells for a whole day, he writes. We don’t go to class to go to school.

Edward described the food in Angola as much worse than the food in other juvenile justice facilities. We often find hair in our food, he writes. One day, another young man threw his plate on the floor after finding a hair. The next day the staff mixed all their food and fried it in a food bun. Both Daniel and Edward said their family members used to visit them at other juvenile justice facilities, but neither had seen their family since they were transferred to Angola. . The prison is located in an isolated area, which is particularly difficult to access for people who do not have a car.

Even if they transfer me to another establishment, I am afraid that they will send me back here to Angola. It’s much worse than other facilities, Daniel said.

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Lawyers say access to Angolan clients is difficult

The civil rights lawyers said they have two other clients in Angola whom the Bureau of Juvenile Justice has prevented them from meeting in person. In December, they asked the court to intervene and force the state to allow these meetings. In the legal papers, attorneys for state officials pushed back, saying civil rights attorneys had failed to provide proof that they had been hired to represent the other two incarcerated youths.

State prosecutors are also likely opposed to Daniel, Edward or any other young people in Angola joining the trial. They have already asked the court to dismiss the lawsuit because the three existing plaintiffs do not include the youths currently detained in Angola. If Daniel and Edward join the group of plaintiffs, it could negate this argument. Lawyers for the plaintiffs have also hinted that the state may deliberately expel their current plaintiffs from the Angola facility to bolster the state’s case.

One of the first complainants, identified in court documents as Alex A., had been told he would likely be transferred to Angola’s new juvenile justice center in September. But after joining the trial and testifying at an initial hearing on the matter, he was never transferred there. He remains at the Bridge City Center for Youth in Jefferson Parish.

The other two existing plaintiffs were also threatened to move to Angola but were never sent, according to their lawyers. An incarcerated youth seeking to join the trial has also already been transferred out of the Angolan facility. Edward was transferred to another juvenile justice center on December 15 or 16, within two days of meeting a lawyer in Angola on December 14, according to court documents.

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