Can you tell me what Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana's greatest accomplishments have been over the past five years?

JJPL started in 1997.  However, the five years since Hurricane Katrina almost feel like a new era.  We’re extremely proud of some of our   accomplishments since then, like helping to secure the release over 150 young people held in detention during the Hurricane, and releasing “Treated Like Trash,” an account of the botched evacuation of these youth and others from the city.  We also launched Juvenile Regional Services, a model juvenile public defender office that has transformed juvenile indigent defense in the city.  Alongside Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children and other partner organizations, we helped to rewrite the Orleans Parish Recovery School District (RSD) Discipline Policy to reduce the number of suspendable and expellable offenses, and helped to reduce the number of security officers in high schools by one-third and in elementary schools by one half.

One of our greatest accomplishments has also been the launching of Young Adults Striving for Success (YASS), an organizing project.  The group started when we filed a federal class action lawsuit on conditions of confinement at the Youth Study Center, New Orleans’ juvenile jail. A number of incarcerated youth who were plaintiffs got involved in the campaign for reform.  Many of them continued to work with us after their release and wanted to take on other social issues they were grappling with post-Katrina New Orleans.  From there, YASS was born, and they have added a whole new dimension to JJPL’s work.

YASS participants. Photograph courtesy of Dana Kaplan.

How does JJPL engage young people to help transform Louisiana's brutal and punitive juvenile justice system?

Youth have always been involved in some aspect of our work, but with the development of YASS, it has become its own full-fledged program.  Initially, YASS worked with JJPL and other organizations in the city on the campaign to close the Youth Study Center, hosting DJ parties as outreach events and testifying before the City Council about their experiences in the facility.  Since then, they have hosted two Youth Summits, with participation of youth from Georgia, Mississippi, and Alabama.  They also just launched a campaign to reform the school security policies at the Recovery School District, an issue that was brought to the forefront after a six-year-old was handcuffed and shackled by a security officer at his elementary school.  While JJPL joined the Southern Poverty Law Center in a lawsuit on behalf of that child, YASS launched an organizing campaign to make schools more supportive and safe in New Orleans.

Youth are also involved in other aspects of JJPL’s work. Via internships and volunteering, young people learn about everything we do, from fundraising to learning about the State Capitol and the law.  JJPL is also committed to including incarcerated youth in our work, seeking their input on reform recommendations and amplifying their stories and voices in our publications and reports.

Fundamentally, JJPL’s belief is that we won’t see the change necessary in the juvenile or criminal justice systems if we aren’t building the political power of those most disenfranchised– poor communities and in particular communities of color.  It’s why working with and empowering youth is so important to us in our work, as well as our partnerships with organizations like FFLIC, Voice of the Ex-Offender (VOTE), and members of other youth organizing groups in New Orleans.

What effect does youth involvement in JJPL advocacy have on the individual? Policy makers?

Incarcerated youth and those on the outside become better advocates for themselves when they work with JJPL.  Rather than relying on others, we’ve seen young people find their voice and use it to make change for themselves and for their communities – which is incredibly powerful to watch.

For the policy makers, it has also made a difference.  I’ve seen elected officials become incredibly moved when they hear first-hand stories from young people caught up in the system that they themselves become more involved.  Whether it’s at City Council meetings or talking with the media, youth that we work with have absolutely been some of the most effective messengers in building broad coalitions and getting some of the most unlikely allies on board.

The five year anniversary of Hurricane Katrina and the floods just passed.  Can you tell us about some of the emotions evoked by this event?

There’s been a lot of reflection leading up to the anniversary, with both a mixture of hope and optimism about what’s been accomplished, as well as recognition of how much work remains to be done and how challenging it is to get there.

For the anniversary of the Hurricane, we are releasing a report called “From Trash to Triumph,” which is a re-release of the original “Treated Like Trash” study about youth trapped in Orleans Parish Prison during the storm, alongside a history of the efforts to reform juvenile detention in New Orleans since then.  After the release of the first report, the Sheriff said he would never again house youth who were in the custody of the juvenile justice system at his facility.  Our litigation against the detention center resulted in a settlement agreement that fundamentally improves conditions for youth, including mandated schooling, recreation time, counseling and mental health services, and increased programming.  The new administration is reform-minded and is in the process of implementing real change.   However, reform is far from complete, and the report offers a number of solutions for what still needs to happen in this city, including more support for alternatives to detention programs for youth.

What should we expect from JJPL in the next  five years?

We're hoping to see YASS continue to grow, and, alongside our partner organizations, reduce suspension and expulsion rates in the New Orleans school system.

Right now, we’re focused on the 65 individuals eligible for relief under the Supreme Court’s ruling in Sullivan and Graham v. Florida, a case that found it unconstitutional to incarcerate children for life without parole for non-homicide offenses.  We are also working alongside Citizens for Second Chances, an organization of families of children serving life without parole, and our faith and community partners to lay the foundation for broader reform to keep children in the juvenile justice system, as is most appropriate.

We have the opportunity to see real reform if we work collectively to build the power of grassroots communities, in coordination with strategic litigation and policy work.  I’m hopeful that five years from now we’ll see reduced incarceration rates, more community services, and increased political power for low-income communities and communities of color in the Deep South.  That would be an invaluable victory for all of us.

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In the five years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke, residents have developed innovative approaches to tackling some of the city’s—and the nation’s—most persistent problems: criminal justice reform, unresponsive government, and racial and economic inequality.  In recognition of these efforts, during the month of August the Open Society Blog shines a light on people and organizations in New Orleans bringing change from within one of the country’s most important cities. Read more posts in this series.

Can you tell us about the origins of Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children?

As the person answering the phones while working for the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, I talked to parents and kept hearing the same horror story.  A lot of them were sad and crying because they were looking for help for their boys and couldn’t find any, and were then told to turn them over to the system where they could get the help they needed.  They felt ostracized by family, churches, and community because they now had children who were incarcerated.

I felt that these mothers and grandmothers could use the support of each other, so I turned to JJPL’s director and lobbied for a support group for these families. After I got his approval, many others were excited about the possibilities and joined in to make this a success.  After a few meetings, we joined JJPL's campaign to close the notorious Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth.  The campaign put parents at the center to tell their stories to provide a human link for  lawmakers who believed that these were “throwaway kids.” We eventually won sweeping reforms that closed Tallulah in 2003 and pushed Louisiana to move from a punitive system to one that is based on rehabilitation, with parents at the center.

We continue to grow our membership and develop leaders as we work on campaigns to stop the school-to-prison pipeline and to downsize and regionalize the remainder of our youth prisons.

Who typically shows up to a Families and Friends rally, and what is it that you hope to accomplish at them?

Rallies include our members who are mothers, grandmothers, aunts, fathers, youth (formerly incarcerated or those affected by the school system) and other concerned citizens.  The rallies aim to shed light on the issues affecting our children and the ill treatment by the school and juvenile systems. We hope to eventually have a juvenile justice system that rehabilitates our children, returns them home whole, and connects them to treatment that keeps them from returning to the system.

We rally to reform our education system, to change those laws around our children’s behavior to rely on positive behavior interventions and conflict resolution, and allow children to be adolescents while giving them the services they need to grow and thrive.  We rally to let everyone know that we will no longer be silent and watch our system continue to be a force of oppression against our families and communities.

What kind of impact has your organization had on juvenile justice and educational reform in New Orleans, and Louisiana in general?

Over the last 10 years FFLIC has had a huge impact on the juvenile justice and educational reform, such as:

• The Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 was passed, committing Louisiana to closing the notoriously brutal juvenile prison in Tallulah, Louisiana, and reducing the number of youths in secure care from close to 2,000 in the year 2000 to just over 500 in 2010.
• We have noticed when attending statewide and local meetings that parents are now viewed as important part of the child’s treatment and care.  FFLIC is often consulted for ideas and input regarding family involvement.  Children in prison are being referred to more and more as “youth” and “students” as opposed to “criminals” or “offenders.”  The Office of Youth Development is making increased attempts to grant furloughs to youth, respond to FFLIC requests to meet and seek out input from our staff and members as reform is taking place.
• We raised over $100,000 to be distributed to close to 100 families through our Circle of Care, to assist them in returning home, repairing or replacing property and houses, and getting back on their feet after Hurricane Katrina.
• We also had success after police officers shot a series of young black men. We were instrumental in securing agreements with the mayor of Lake Charles to go through a Dismantling Racism training series, encourage the police chief to do the same, and begin research on the formation of an Office of the Independent Monitor to oversee police conduct. In New Orleans, we helped develop a training on how to prepare for a school discipline hearing and trained over 20 parents.  Those parents have been able to go to discipline hearings and ensure that their children are not pushed out of school.
• We released a report, Pushed Out: Harsh Discipline in Louisiana Schools Denies the Right to Education, with the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative. It analyzes suspension and expulsion data and documents the perspectives of students and parents, highlighting some of the harsh discipline practices as well as the disproportionate punishment of students of color for minor infractions.

Over the last 9 years, we have developed a successful methodology of transformative organizing by which we work closely with individual community members to do real and deep leadership development and also work collectively to build projects and campaigns that keep parents at the center.

You’re a true-blue New Orleaniean—how has that impacted your efforts at FFLIC?

In Louisiana, New Orleans in particular, there is a continued distrust of people coming in our state/city trying to be our Savior, making a name for themselves and then leaving.  Part of our mission is a belief that we are the experts on what our communities need.  We live that mission by ensuring that we hire within our members and their local communities. So, we don’t just say we are the experts, we live it.

What can we expect to see from your organization in the next decade?

We aim to empower and develop many more leaders and chapters across Louisiana in order to reach and engage more families. We expect to see the Missouri juvenile system model fully implemented and fewer youth entering the system, and those who do will receive the rehabilitative treatment that they deserve. We also expect to reduce the number of youth flowing into the juvenile justice system from unjustly school suspensions and expulsions.

We will continue to empower and transform our communities and to push for social change until power has shifted and the people most affected by the issues will be a part of the decision-making process. We will continue to participate until there is a world where everyone is judged by the content of their character and not by the color of their skin, and everyone can reach their full potential.

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In the five years since Hurricane Katrina hit New Orleans and the levees broke, residents have developed innovative approaches to tackling some of the city’s—and the nation’s—most persistent problems: criminal justice reform, unresponsive government, and racial and economic inequality. In recognition of these efforts, during the month of August the Open Society Blog shines a light on people and organizations in New Orleans bringing change from within one of the country’s most important cities. Read more posts in this series.