Pubdate: 27 May 2004
Source: Dallas Morning News
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Juvenile prison to close its doors
Few teens rehabilitated in institution that was repeatedly investigated
08:15 PM CDT on Wednesday, May 26, 2004
Associated Press
TALLULAH, La. ? The allegations began soon after the prison opened for business: teenage inmates beaten by guards, beating each other, running loose on rooftops of the barrackslike dorms.
Ten years later, Louisiana is shutting down its top-security juvenile prison, a move that child welfare advocates see as an admission that the prison was a failure. The closure comes after years of investigations ? by the U.S. Justice Department, human rights advocates and others ? who found the lockup a place of chaos and brutality.
The state plans to turn Tallulah into an adult prison.
"Tallulah became known as one of the worst, if not the worst, juvenile facility in the country," said Mark Soler, head of the Youth Law Center, a juvenile justice advocacy group in Washington, D.C.
Advocates said the adult-style prison ? with individual cells inside cell blocks behind razor wire ? created an atmosphere unlikely to rehabilitate the teenagers. More likely, they said, the teenagers would be released destined to commit far worse crimes, followed by convictions and sentences in the state's adult prisons.
A court-appointed expert, after a 1999 inspection of the prison, wrote of Tallulah's teenage inmates: "If we can't control them and make some difference in their lives now, God help us when we meet them on the street."
The Tallulah prison began as part of Louisiana's brief experiment with privately run juvenile lockups. Its clusters of beige metal buildings were built in 1994, with a capacity for 620 inmates. The teenagers, the state's toughest cases, were incarcerated after convictions on homicide, assault, robbery, rape, drug and other charges.
The prison was first run by a management company with no experience in juvenile prisons. Within months, riots and allegations of abuse forced the state to take on-and-off control.
In 1997, the Justice Department found widespread abuse of inmates by guards, leaving teenagers with gashes and broken bones. Federal investigators reported a year later that teenagers were routinely beating and, in some cases, raping their fellow inmates. Mentally ill inmates were housed with dangerous felons.
In a recent interview, Hyam Guyton Jr., 61, Tallulah's warden since 2001, highlighted the prison's classrooms, its medical facilities and programs for rewarding teenagers' improved behavior.
"I think we did a real good job, a wonderful job, of correcting those boys' behavior," Mr. Guyton said.
But the prison's end was foreshadowed in 2002, when a juvenile court judge demanded that the state move inmates elsewhere. Judge Mark Doherty of New Orleans cited "grave concerns for [prisoners'] physical and mental health" and demanded the transfer of all Tallulah prisoners whom he had sentenced.
info@youthlawcenter.com To say the drug war is a failure is like saying the Hindenburg was short a few fire extinguishers.
http://mapinc.org/drugnews/v01/n808/a10.html' target='_new'>Carl Hiassen
