“Legal advocates say moving incarcerated youth to the once notoriously-violent Angola prison will traumatize them and limit their access to needed programs and services.”
Reporting from The 19th: “‘I do not believe Angola is a place for any child, and as a parent, I strenuously disapprove of the decision to move my son and any other youth to a facility located there,’ the mother of one Bridge City youth told Dick’s courtroom. The lawsuit filed on the youths’ behalf says her 17-year-old son Alex struggles with PTSD and has lost sleep and begun pulling out his hair at the prospect of being moved to Angola. He said that his one solace is being able to speak to his mother for 15 minutes each day. He believes that she is the only one who really listens to him.”
“In a proclamation released at the end of last month, President Joe Biden recognized October 2022 as National Juvenile Justice Action Month. Noting that young people of color and youth with disabilities are disproportionately represented among the 36,000 young Americans who ‘remain confined in juvenile residential facilities, too often stuck in unsafe environments, facing adult charges or severe sentences and living with untreated trauma that keeps them from moving forward,’ Biden pledged to stand with youth justice advocates to work to build a system ‘focused on redemption and rehabilitation, especially for our children.'”
