The Death of Tallulah Prison

For nearly 10 years, the Tallulah youth prison has sat on the edge of northeastern Louisiana — imposing, barb-wired, a warehouse for hundreds of young men locked on the inside. Built on the momentum of the national "tough on juvenile crime' wave of the early '90s, the Swanson Correctional Center for Youth (referred to as simply "Tallulah,' after the small delta town where it is located) has symbolized for many the intractability of the impoverished, lockdown culture of Louisiana, the state with the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The Tallulah youth prison, considered by some to be the worst juvenile facility in the country, is notorious for its cruelty. Broken bones, black eyes, fractured jaws and rapes are everyday occurrences.

"You can't imagine the things they do to children at Tallulah,' says Brenda Brue, a New Orleans woman whose son was sent to the prison for over two years. "These children are abused by guards who are supposedly there to care for them. Guards beat on the children, sell them drugs and have sex with them. This is what is happening and the children are afraid to say anything about it.'

Yet in a state well-known for its racism, corruption and cronyism, a small coalition of parents of incarcerated children, lawyers and organizers managed to pass a transformative piece of legislation last June. The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 paves the way for a radical reconstruction of the state's juvenile justice system and mandates the closure of the notorious Tallulah youth prison. The passion for Louisiana's youth that united various parties into a powerful coalition can make for an equally powerful lesson. Sometimes unusual allies result in unusual triumphs. And perhaps, the most significant triumph is that the struggle to pass the Act of 2003 has ignited a movement for youth justice throughout the state.

Private Prisons, Public Disasters

The Tallulah youth prison never made any bones about rehabilitating its young inmates. In fact, the recidivism rate of the youth held there has increased to at least 90 percent over the years, according to Louisiana State University prison expert Cecile Guin.

The prison did, however, function quite well as a cash cow for the private for-profit corporation who won the state contract to open and operate the facility back in 1994. In May 2001, the state's legislative auditor found that between January 1995 and April 2001, three members of Trans-American Development Associates, cronies of then-Gov. Edwin Edwards, pocketed $8.7 million dollars from the deal. Even after lawsuits forced the state to seize control of the facility in 1999, the three continued to put away up to $600,000 each fiscal year until the legislature finally ceased all payments except those which covered the lease of the facility. These annual lease payments by the state are scheduled to continue until construction bonds for the facility are paid off in 2012, after which the three men—not the state, parish or town—will retain ownership of the physical plant.

Almost six weeks after it first opened its doors on November 16, 1994, federal judge Frank Polozola declared a state of emergency at the prison "due to riots and an inability of staff to control or protect youth.' In 1995 Human Rights Watch reported that all of Louisiana's youth prisons violated international human rights standards and that the Tallulah facility failed to provide adequate education and programming to youth and inappropriately placed children in small, bare isolation cells. In 1996 the United States Department of Justice began an investigation and found that in just 20 days in August, 28 Tallulah youth were sent to the hospital for treatment of serious injuries. The investigation declared youth prison "life threatening and dangerous' to children. In 1997 the DOJ formally notified the state that conditions at Tallulah violated the United States Constitution and federal law. And finally, in 1998, following a bold lawsuit initiated by the fledgling Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana on behalf of children incarcerated at the Tallulah youth prison, the Department of Justice joined suit and Louisiana became the first state in the nation to be sued by the federal government over conditions in its juvenile facilities.