Publications
Trash to Triumph: Juvenile Detention in New Orleans 5 Years after Katrina- Demonstrating the true power of community to make change, New Orleans can now claim as a victory a new plan to improve the staffing, leadership, and treatment of youth detained at the Youth Study Center, a facility with a storied history of mistreatment of youth awaiting court hearings, as well as the building of a new state of the art facility based on best practices. Trash to Triumph includes a re-release of Treated Like Trash.
Treated Like Trash: Juvenile Detention in New Orleans Before, During, and After Hurricane Katrina- As Hurricane Katrina approached, people throughout the region began to evacuate by the hundreds of thousands. New Orleans Mayor C. Ray Nagin estimated that by Sunday night, nearly one million people had fled New Orleans and its surrounding parishes. Among the many people who could not flee—even as the Weather Service’s warnings continued, even as the city descended into chaos—was a group of children locked up in Orleans Parish Prison (OPP). The stories of these children, the systemic failures that led to their abandonment and the strategies necessary to fix juvenile detention in New Orleans are the subject of this Report.
Locked Up & Out: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, and Transgender Youth in Louisiana’s Juvenile Justice System- LGBT youth, once inside prisons, often bear the worst the system has to offer. LGBT youth in Louisiana are often faced with physical and sexual violence, experience excessive use of lockdown/isolation, and are the targets of psychological attacks. This report describes challenges LGBT youth face at school, at home, in prevention/intervention programming, with police, with substance abuse, and in group homes and detention centers that lead to their being funneled even deeper into the system and makes recommendations for achieving a stronger juvenile justice system that acknowledges the needs of LGBT youth.
Ya Heard Me- Ya Heard Me is a periodical publication of young people’s original poems, stories, lyrics, drawings and other creative writings. The mission is to recognize, encourage, and share the creative talents of youth who are at the time incarcerated in Louisiana’s juvenile facilities.