Update: 05/16/2024 Read Louisiana Lacks Standards to Protect Children Held in Converted Shipping Containers: an Advocacy Paper on Behalf of Louisiana’s Children, released by Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services.
Louisiana United Methodist Children and Family Services opposes the use of converted shipping containers for the detention and incarceration of children. If Louisiana permits their use, the state must promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to ensure the safety and well-being of children.
That Louisiana would allow the unregulated use of converted shipping containers for detention, secure care, or prison cells for children seems surreal. Now, the safety and well-being of Louisiana’s children require that Louisiana promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards controlling the use of shipping containers converted into prison cells for children.
However, faced with too few beds and subpar facilities, authorities over children often do what they deem necessary in the name of expediency. Expedient authorities may harm children who are held in shipping containers converted, installed, used, and maintained without proper regulatory standards. Louisiana requires Minimum Licensing Standards that address the use of converted shipping containers for the detention and incarceration of Louisiana’s children.
Update: 05/03/2024 To prevent harm to children by the unregulated use of converted shipping containers, we submitted a letter to the Secretary of the Department of Children and Family Services, the Acting Deputy Secretary of the Office of Juvenile Justice, the Chairs of the Senate and House Health and Welfare Committees, and the Louisiana Office of Child Ombudsman asking the Department of Children and Family Services develop and promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to regulate the use of converted shipping containers for juvenile detention centers, jails, prisons, and all other locations where children may be held. If these required Minimum Licensing Standards have not been promulgated before July 1, 2024, when the Office of Juvenile Justice becomes responsible for related licensing standards, we asked the Office of Juvenile Justice to complete the task with all haste.
Update: 04/23/2024 Minimum Licensing Standards are an essential element of Child Well-being Infrastructure. Without the protections that Minimum Licensing Standards offer children, providers and facilities may do willy-nilly what they wish, placing children at risk of physical and emotional injury. Louisiana has no Minimum Licensing Standards addressing the conversion of shipping containers into detention rooms.
The American Correctional Association has no accreditation standards that address the use of converted shipping containers for the detention or incarceration of juveniles. If the State of Louisiana will permit the detention and incarceration of children to take place in converted shipping containers, then Louisiana must first promulgate Minimum Licensing Standards to mitigate risks for the youth who will be detained in the converted containers by stipulating basic requirements to protect the health, safety, and well-being of children in judicial care.
The primary appeal of converted container prisons is that they are relatively inexpensive compared to brick-and-mortar construction. Because Louisiana has too few juvenile justice beds, container prisons have the added appeal of being a quick solution to needed bed space. However, allowing unfettered use of containers for juveniles will multiply problems for children in custody and the correctional and detention centers responsible for their well-being.
Minimum Licensing Standards for converted shipping container prisons for youth matter because they require detention centers and prisons to take care of the basics. Some of the questions that Minimum Licensing Standards answer include:
- Who certified the design?
- Will the individual cells be large enough?
- Will there be sufficient encumbered and unencumbered floor space?
- Is the ceiling high enough for safety? (Current licensing standards require 10 feet between the floor and ceiling in sleeping areas.)
- Will there be six individual cells with independent doors for each or six beds in one large room?
- What Louisiana standards for the care of children regulate the use of converted shipping containers?
- If the containers are recycled, who verifies and certifies that any toxic substances spilled in the containers during their use in shipping have been safely cleaned?
- If cutting torches are used in the remodeling, who will verify that all sharp edges have been removed?
- Will they be properly insulated against heat and cold?
- To prevent suicide by hanging or strangulation, will there be no ligature points?
- How will the cells control humidity and the resulting rust and corrosion?
- Will the converted containers be “wet” or “dry” (with or without toilets)?
- If wired for lights and electrical power, how will the risk of electrical shock be eliminated in a metal container?
- Will the metal containers be properly grounded and protected against lightning strikes?
- Will the containers’ ventilation, heating, and cooling be correct? (Even eight years after opening the container prison at Rimutaka, prison officials in New Zealand struggled to solve the problems of temperature – and New Zealand has a very mild climate compared to Louisiana’s summer heat.)
- What lessons have juvenile justice officials gleaned from the container prison installations of Camp Delta at Guantánamo Bay, the Rimutaka Prison Container Project in New Zealand, or the container prison at Canning Vale in Western Australia?
Update: 04/15/2024 Community rumors about Jackson Parish Jail’s conversion of shipping containers into detention cells for children were confirmed this week during the Baton Rouge Press Club meeting which featured Senator Regina Barrow and Louisiana’s State Child Ombudsman, Judge Kathleen Richey.
Recently, I made a tour of a facility in Jackson Parish where there are 52 children being held, and the plan that the parish has is to put these children into what are called “container units.” It is essentially a tractor-trailer unit, like the 18-wheelers, and the plan is to put six children per container. So I’m working on that.
“Kathleen Richey and State Senator Regina Barrow | Foster Children | Press Club | 04/15/2024” YouTube, uploaded by Louisiana Public Broadcasting, 15 April, 2024, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_rQBOjyZc5w 09:44-10:09
Noted: 03/02/2024 In 2010, because Louisiana’s legislature desired “to protect the health, safety, and well-being of the children of this state who are placed in juvenile detention facilities,” the Legislature promulgated a state licensing and inspection law for juvenile detention centers (RS 15:1110) that requires the facilities to be licensed by DCFS.
After three years of work with stakeholders from OJJ and state public safety and corrections organizations to establish uniform licensing standards, on July 1, 2013, Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services began licensing our state’s juvenile justice facilities. The current standards, dated October 1, 2022, are available at Louisiana Juvenile Detention Standards.
Louisiana’s original Juvenile Detention Standards and none of the revisions since 2013 mention the use of shipping containers for children’s jail cells.
According to Falcon Structures on Container Dimensions, “Most commonly, containers are around 10-feet, 20-feet, or 40-feet long, each at around 8 feet wide. The height of each shipping container varies between standard height (8 feet 6 inches) and “high cube” (9 feet 6 inches), which are often used to increase storage space or create better air circulation.”
If the exterior height of a high cube is 9’6″, without serious remodeling, even the tallest standard shipping container does not meet Louisiana’s requirement that sleeping area “ceilings shall be a minimum of 10 feet from ceiling to floor.”
For additional background on using shipping containers as juvenile detention cells – or for prisons of any type – these two articles address questions raised by a new juvenile justice issue in Louisiana.
01/30/2018 Can Shipping Containers Hold Inmates? Yes But Also No, Correctional News
Shipping containers and semi-trailers have also caught on in the industry of incarceration: In at least five countries, shipping containers have held inmates—at times in defiance of basic jail standards.
01/9/2018 Inside a Prefab Missouri Jail Made of Semi-Trailers: Repurposed shipping containers and semi-trailers are finding a new life—as jails. by Daniel A. Gross, Bloomberg
Still, the semi-trailer jail appears to fall well short of several widely accepted standards. For example, the American Correctional Association, or ACA, tells sheriffs in its “Core Jail Standards” that all rooms should have windows that provide natural light—which, according to Arnott, the sleeping trailers lack. The UN Standard Minimum Rules for the Treatment of Prisoners, also known as the Nelson Mandela Rules, have similar language. ACA guidelines also require that when jail cells house multiple inmates, they “provide 25 square feet of unencumbered space per occupant.” The sleeping trailers can house 36 inmates each, which translates into 12.5 square feet per inmate—much of which is taken up by bunk beds.
Finally, for Louisiana’s children, Louisiana’s Department of Children and Family Services may not have a chance to resolve this issue for the state’s juvenile detention facilities. You see, on July 1, 2024, the licensing authority over juvenile detention facilities in Louisiana will be transferred to the Office of Juvenile Justice pursuant to R.S. 15:1110.3. While OJJ will be required to maintain “Licensing standards for juvenile detention centers that comport with nationally recognized and accepted best practice standards,” Louisiana often fails to comport with national standards.
Louisiana has Standards to Maintain
Regarding standards for detention, during Richard Stalder’s tenure as Secretary of the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, the Office of Juvenile Justice (“OYD” or “Office of Youth Development” at the time) declared that OJJ would only contract to place children in group homes and facilities that the American Correctional Association accredited. The standards of care stabilized and improved.
In 2023, the Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice received the Golden Eagle award from the American Correctional Association in recognition of OJJ accrediting every component within their area of responsibility. According to the ACA, “the Golden Eagle award represents the highest commitment to excellence in correctional operations and the dedication … to enhancing public safety and the well-being of incarcerated individuals.”
Today, OJJ, its facilities, and contract providers are in a good position to focus on continued quality. Minimum Licensing Standards related to converted shipping containers are necessary to maintain the current quality.
On September 15, 2023, the Office of Juvenile Justice (OJJ) announced the transfer of all youth out of the West Feliciana Center for Youth, which was located on the grounds of Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary.
The youth were transferred from the repurposed death row at Angola to Jackson Parish Jail, which had opened a new juvenile justice facility in July 2023. OJJ reported the youth from Angola would be kept in Jackson Parish until the work on Swanson, a secure care facility in Monroe, is completed.
OJJ stated their officials would work with Jackson Parish officials to ensure that OJJ youth housed in Jackson Parish continued “to receive rehabilitative services and care that follows state and federal laws and regulations.”
The fact that Jackson Parish Jail intends to house youth in converted containers indicates that the new juvenile justice facility is full or will be.