Isolated, no air conditioning: Louisiana youth in solitary cells amid heat, ACLU says
Incarcerated youth in Louisiana have been locked for days in solitary confinement in a former death row prison unit, facing extreme heat in cells with no air conditioning or windows, according to declarations filed on Monday in an ACLU case.
Sworn statements from children imprisoned inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola prison, allege that youth spent roughly four consecutive days in isolation earlier this month, and were given only 8min a day outside their cells to shower. On those days, the heat index, which measures how hot it feels based on humidity and temperatures, ranged from 115F to 132F (46C to 55C), placing the youth at high risk of heatstroke and other serious health impacts, according to the ACLU’s experts.
The youth remained shackled while they showered, one youth wrote. It’s unclear how many have faced these conditions, but state officials said earlier this month that there were 15 youth housed in the former death row, 14 of whom were Black.
“They’re in excessive Louisiana heat for days on end with no relief,” said Nancy Rosenbloom, senior litigation advisor of the ACLU National Prison Project, who said the water in their cells was not drinkable. “The kids are telling us they have to hold out a cup through the bars to ask for water … These are cells made for adults locked up for the most serious crimes.”
Louisiana’s office of juvenile justice (OJJ) declined to comment on Tuesday.
The latest claims of inhumane and dangerous conditions come one year after the state proposed transferring some youth from juvenile centers to Angola, the largest maximum-security adult prison in the US, which has a long history of abuse and neglect scandals. Officials announced the plan after six youth escaped from a juvenile jail last year, saying Angola would temporarily be used as a “transitional treatment unit” for youth who required a “more restrictive housing environment”.
The ACLU and other attorneys filed a class-action suit in August to block the transfers. Youth in the juvenile system are in civil delinquency proceedings and are not charged with criminal offenses, meaning they’re not supposed to be subject to punitive conditions.
A judge responded that the “prospect of putting a teenager to bed at night in a locked cell behind razor wire surrounded by swamps at Angola is disturbing”, and said the placements would “likely cause psychological trauma and harm”, the Appeal news site reported. But she allowed the transfers, writing: “The threat of harm these youngsters present to themselves, and others, is intolerable.”
In October, Louisiana began moving children as young as 14 to Angola. Several teenagers represented by the ACLU have since alleged they’ve been peppersprayed, assaulted by guards, denied adequate medical care and educational services and cut off from regular family communication.
An OJJ official testified earlier this month that 70 to 80 youth have gone through Angola since last year and that they spend four to eight weeks in the former death row so the state can “deescalate them and then return them back to their campus”.
In Monday’s filings, one youth plaintiff said a staff member recently threw him against a wall, breaking his skin and causing him to bleed. The next day, he said, guards pepper-sprayed another youth who was shackled and that the chemicals spread to his cell. “Being maced … on my open wound, really burned and hurt,” he wrote, adding that a brief shower “did not get all the mace off of my body”.
He also said he was close to receiving his high school diploma, but was delayed due to the minimal instruction available at Angola: “They keep promising that they’ll give me education, but don’t.” He wrote that he often couldn’t sleep due to the heat, and that a fan in the facility did not always work. He said when they do get two hours of “recreation”, four youth are allowed out at once, but remain shackled: “No ball is provided, so we just sit there.”
A 16-year-old wrote that he was locked in his cell for three days straight and has seen others be isolated for 48 hours as a form of punishment. He said he gets no substance use treatment at Angola, which is also too far for his family to visit.
The ACLU alleges youth who arrive to Angola are routinely placed in solitary for 72 hours when they first arrive. “To be in held in poorly ventilated hot cells causes a feeling of suffocation [and] … panicked desperation,” wrote Dr Susi Vassallo, a medical expert for the ACLU who has treated patients in jail. “Louisiana’s cruelty to animals laws would not support keeping a dog confined in this heat in a cage.”
“The law is very clear that children in juvenile delinquency proceedings cannot be locked up for punishment – only for rehabilitation,” added Rosenbloom. “This is clearly punishment at Angola.”