News: 09/09/2024 Louisiana moves further from therapeutic detention. On July 1, Louisiana’s legislature passed authority for the licensing of Juvenile Detention Centers from the Department of Children and Family Services to the Office of Juvenile Justice. In itself, this is not unusual because many states’ juvenile justice agencies are responsible for licensing juvenile detention facilities.
However, in Louisiana, a state that desperately requires a more therapeutic approach to juvenile detention, the lean is toward harsher treatment of children in detention. Now, The Lens reports that Louisiana sanctions use of pepper spray and mace on detained juveniles.
This is a “must-read” article for anyone interested in the well-being of Louisiana’s children.
It is difficult to believe that Louisiana’s juvenile justice personnel are meaner-spirited, harsher, or less compassionate than juvenile justice professionals in most states. Perhaps the resort to pepper spray and mace is a consequence of a juvenile justice system that has lost sight of its purpose and has been so poorly supported for so long that a perpetual state of crisis creates a sense of desperation.
Louisiana has become one of few states that allow the use of chemical agents to control children in detention. The new practice begs the question, “What changed?”
Finally, the article reports that after a child was sprayed with pepper spray, the cell’s water was turned off – which cruelly prolongs the agony. We must be better than this, Louisiana.