MONROE, La. (KNOE) - After years of escapes and violence at juvenile justice facilities across Louisiana, officials and state leaders are looking to improve security by changing how juveniles are brought into and moved through the system.

Those proposed changes could mean all of the state’s highest-risk juvenile offenders would be housed at the Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe.

On May 18, the Office of Juvenile Justice and State Senator Heather Cloud presented a bill to the House Criminal Justice Committee that would create a risk-based tier system for juvenile offenders in Louisiana.

“When a juvenile is taken into custody, an evaluation and assessment on the front end of each juvenile, considering their needs including medical, education, and psychological,” explained Senator Cloud.

Currently, juveniles are taken to the facility closest to their home. Under this measure, juveniles would go to either a low, medium, or high-risk facility based on their evaluation. Inmates will be re-evaluated every few months.

“With good behavior and good intrinsic and extrinsic motivators provided by OJJ, he could move to the low tier,” explained Senator Cloud.

The Office of Juvenile Justice has designated the new $26 million Swanson Center for Youth in Monroe as the state’s only high-risk facility. That’s where one particularly violent incident played out in 2021.

“I was blindsided with a metal pipe, hit in the back of the head from behind, which I received eight staples for,” OJJ Regional Director Orlando Davis told the committee. “Immediately after that, I was struck in the left eye.

The new Swanson facility will house individual rooms and will have other enhanced security features.

“State’s also fortifying some of the walls,” explained OJJ Deputy Secretary William Sommers. “We have had some issues that some of the kids have gone through the walls. What we have done is obviously put rebar and cement in each one of the blocks.”

The building will also include high exterior walls to prevent kids from accessing the roof.

“There were going to put regular ceilings up there, and we said no, we need to have fortified ceilings,” Sommers told the committee.

The bill has already passed the Senate and is awaiting a vote in the House.

The new facility at Swanson is expected to be completed by 2023.

Click here for past articles on troubles within Swanson and the state’s juvenile justice system.

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