Juvenile Justice Advocates Release Report: A Failing System Reminiscent of Tallulah

From our friends at Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children:
On Monday, Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC), released a report to the Office of Juvenile Justice, the Juvenile Justice Implementation Commission, and Governor Bobby Jindal, providing details of family reports of failing juvenile reform. The report highlights OJJs failure to in implement the Juvenile Justice Reform Act of 2003 (ACT 1225) and offers recommendations which will bring about reform and move Louisiana more inline with an internationally accepted model of juvenile rehab services. (Family reports comprised by FFLIC were given anonymously due to concerns of retaliation or other harm against incarcerated youth.)

FFLIC is a state-wide agency serving as an advocate for parents who have children receiving inadequate care, safety and rehabilitative services while in the care of state juvenile facilities.

In the nearly 20-page report, FFLIC highlights comparisons and contrasts to and between the current Louisiana and Missouri models of juvenile rehabilitative services. According to FFLIC, the Office of Juvenile Justice agreed to adopt the internationally acclaimed Missouri Model, developed by the Missouri Services Youth Institute, which focuses on therapeutic, child-centered environment versus a traditional adult correctional or custodial model. Among the standards successfully implemented in the Missouri Model, FFLIC believes Louisiana is ineffective in rehabilitative therapy, placement of low-risk youth, facility staff and administration, youth transitions to productive citizenship, education, and physical facilities.

Gina Womack, Executive Director of FFLIC, says she is saddened by the findings in the report and is disappointed that these constant shortcomings by the Office of Juvenile Justice force organizations such as FFLIC, observing its 10 year anniversary, to exist. “In the 10 years we have existed, we’ve gotten a law passed — a law that is largely being ignored. Children are still being abused and neglected within a system that vows to care for them. The fate of our children is in the hands of people who continue to treat our children with disregard and their families with disrespect,” Womack says.

“Our children are being handled according to outdated correctional methods. We need to get a handle on this situation before another child dies behind those razor-wire fences,” Womack added.

Other major areas of concern cited in the report include:

A lack of family involvement
A mother of a child currently at the Bridge City Center for Youth said she was not given any information about her child when he entered Office of Juvenile Justice custody. Upon her child’s intake, she was not made aware of whom she should call in order to receive information. Another parent expressed her concern about how parents are informed of policy changes. While visiting her son, this parent was informed that visitation policies had changed while some parents were turned away before seeing their children.

A lack of high caliber staff involvement
FFLIC believes Bridge City struggles to retain adequately trained staff due to administrative problems and a lack of support. Currently, probation officers and parole officers are being used to supplement understaffed shifts. The report also cites multiple incidents of staff sexual misconduct and intimate relationships with the youth. A social worker was terminated from Swanson for having a relationship with a youth and there are reports of misconduct at Bridge City.

Poor youth services and harsh facility conditions
Parents are learning from their children that youth interactions have grown “extremely hostile” within the past months, resulting in fights between youths from different neighborhoods. As a means to prevent the violence, one parent said the Office of Juvenile Justice simply places more aggressive youth in the same dorm facility.

“The Louisiana juvenile justice system does not seem to be rehabilitating too many youth,” FFLIC officials stated in the report. “Instead, these youth are being housed and released without any significant change to their behavior and perceptions. Sometimes due to the mistreatment and the violence they have suffered while locked up, they (youth) become more harden(ed) and jeopardize themselves and their community.”

FFLIC came on the scene in 2001 when the organization held a “Mock Jazz Funeral” to mourn the dead and dying dreams of Louisiana’s youth. The jazz funeral protest garnered national media attention and led to the closing of the Tallulah youth prison, deemed the worst juvenile facility in the country by the New York Times in 2000. At the Louisiana facility, youth were subjected to broken bones, black eyes, fractured jaws, and rapes as everyday occurrences.

Moving Forward With the Status Quo

A Response to Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal’s Veto of Senate Bill 67, by Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children:
When Governor Bobby Jindal vetoed State Senate Bill 67 (SB 67), he failed to protect the right to education for thousands of Louisiana school children. Each year more than 25% of Louisiana students are put out of school for “willful disobedience”, which includes suspensions of students in elementary grades for very minor “infractions”, like being out of uniform. In the 2009-2010 school year alone, there were more than 14,600 Louisiana students suspended for being habitually tardy or absent. (Source: Louisiana Department of Education, 2010. Discipline Actions and Ethnicity by Reason Code).

It was this alarming data that led students, parents, teachers and education advocates in Louisiana to come together to advocate for SB67 to demand that suspensions and expulsions be reduced and those positive approaches to school discipline be used that address student behavior while keeping kids in school. If we are to create an equitable and high quality public education system for Louisiana’s children, we must ensure that students are not hastily pushed out of school for minor infractions. Keeping our young people in school should be our number one priority.

Yet despite having bi-partisan support, majority floor votes, and being passed by both the Louisiana House of Representatives and Senate, Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal vetoed SB 67 on July 1, 2011.

Senate Bill 67, if enacted, would have reduced suspensions and expulsions for minor infractions by encouraging schools and districts to use positive intervention tools and strategies such as restorative justice and peer mediation. Research from schools and districts across the country has shown that these positive approaches are more effective than suspensions and are proven to reduce disciplinary incidents and even decrease violent incidents in schools by up to 50%.

In Governor Bobby Jindal’s statement following his veto of the bill, he stated, “I have always supported a teacher’s right to use a variety of tools and strategies in his or her own classroom. Senate Bill No. 67 reduces those tools and strategies by placing restrictions on when and how they can be used.” Yet at the close of each legislative session Governor Bobby Jindal signs many bills from the Louisiana Legislature that limit the variety of tools and strategies that teachers can use, including the many budget cuts imposed on the education profession that the governor actively supported and that will have a significant impact on the accessibility and application of tools and strategies teachers can use in their classroom. Furthermore, Senate Bill 67 would not have taken away rights or restrict teachers from using any tools and strategies in their classroom. However, it would have required that classroom teachers allow students in grades kindergarten through 5th grade to stay in class when out of uniform or for being habitually absent or tardy.

In his statement Governor Jindal added, “nothing in current law prevents a school board from deciding to reduce the use of suspension or expulsion, speed up the expulsion hearing, or hold parent-teacher conferences in a timelier manner.” However, nothing in current law encourages them to do so, which is exactly why SB67 is so necessary since the school boards are in fact doing the opposite. Each and every year, approximately 300,000 Louisiana students spend several days out of school due to “disciplinary” reasons. (Source: Louisiana Department of Education, 2010. Discipline Actions and Ethnicity by Reason Code).

The state of Louisiana will never close the achievement gap or decrease the racial disparities among students who are pushed out of school in Louisiana for subjective minor “disciplinary” reasons. Currently, the Louisiana Revised Statute 17:416 (R.S. 17:416) allows local school boards to keep a student out of school indefinitely until an expulsion hearing takes place; it has been noted that on average students are kept out of school for more than 14 days awaiting an expulsion hearing.

At present, there is nothing in state law that protects the rights of children or prevents school boards from putting young students out of school for minor and subjective disciplinary reasons. SB 67 would have amended state law R.S. 17:416 to decrease the number of days a student could be suspended out of school for minor disciplinary infractions and require districts to create guidelines for reducing suspensions for “willful disobedience.” Furthermore, the bill would have made certain that students were not out of school for more than 10 days awaiting an expulsion hearing. Finally, SB 67 would have supported the Louisiana Department of Education (LDOE) in attaining the “9 Critical Goals” as adopted by the LDOE and the Board of Elementary and Secondary Education (BESE) in 2010.

The current practices of school boards across the state and the current state law related to suspensions and expulsions do not align with the goal of the Louisiana State Constitution which states:

“The goal of the public education system is to provide learning environments and experiences, at all stages of human development, that are humane, just, and designed to promote excellence in order that every individual may be afforded an equal opportunity to develop to his full potential.”
- Preamble to Article 8 of the Louisiana State Constitution

If we do not begin to make logical data-driven decisions to protect the educational rights of our children by amending the state’s disciplinary laws (specifically R.S. 17:416) to ensure that students are not being denied their right to an education, the state of Louisiana runs a high risk of a class action law suit for violating students’ constitutional rights to receive an education.

Power, authority and autonomy is heavily sought after within the education system in Louisiana; the teachers want power and control in their classroom by any means; the principals want power over their school by any means; the school boards wants power over the schools in their districts by any means; and in the mean time students are left powerless.

Given the existing data and bi-partisan support we can only conclude that Governor Jindal’s reason for vetoing Senate Bill No. 67 was not based on data, qualitative information, or concern for the constitution but rather on the governor’s subjective reasoning and uninformed advice. We recommend that Governor Jindal support the provisions proposed in Senate Bill 67 during the 2012 legislative session.

If we are to shift the current paradigm and change the status quo it is imperative that we continue to organize ourselves.

For more information contact dmorgan@fflic.org.

Fire on the Bayou: Non-Stop River of Oil Heads to Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama and Florida, By Bill Quigley

The Coast Guard estimates 5000 barrels of crude oil a day, 210,000 gallons a day, are pouring out of a damaged British Petroleum (BP) well in the Gulf of Mexico since the April 20 Deepwater Horizon rig explosion. Eleven people died in the explosion. The oil rig burned and sank. The exploratory well, which is 50 miles away from the coast, continues to powerfully disgorge oil from the bottom of the 5000 feet deep surface of the Gulf.

Oil has now reached the Louisiana coast. The Associated Press (AP) reported there is an oil slick 130 miles long and 70 miles wide in the Gulf of Mexico. Birds covered in thick black oil have already been recovered. Efforts to stop the oil have not proven effective. The AP reports the oil is expected to reach Mississippi on Saturday, Alabama in two days and Florida in three.

Late Friday afternoon, the Mobile Press Register reported a confidential government report prepared by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration’s Emergency Ops concluded that if the pipe on the Gulf floor “deteriorates further, the flow could become unchecked resulting in a release volume an order of magnitude higher than previously thought.” An uncontrolled release of oil “could become an unchecked gusher shooting millions of gallons of oil per day into the Gulf.”

Plans to set parts of the Gulf on fire have been pushed back by bad weather. The unprecedented idea was to burn up the oil spill before it reached land. “This is a great tool,” promised a BP representative.

In response, one long-time Louisiana resident said, “You know you’re in very serious trouble when the solution is for BP and the feds to set the Gulf on fire.”

Worst hit in Louisiana are the coastal areas of Plaquemines and St. Bernard Parishes – just now limping back from the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.

On Friday afternoon, federal and state officials held a joint press conference in Louisiana. Curiously, they held their conference with BP representatives. Officials characterized the situation as dangerous and unprecedented. Government representatives said they were pushing BP to increase its efforts to stop the oil because current efforts have not been effective. Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano flatly acknowledged that the US is working closely with BP.

BP has caused a lot of trouble lately. The Pulitzer Prize winning news site Pro Publica reported BP “has found itself at the center of several of the nation’s worst oil and gas-related disasters in recent years.” BP recently plead guilty to federal felony charges related to a massive explosion in Texas where investigators found ignored safety rules and a disabled warning system. BP is also accused of responsibility for several recent spills in Alaska.

Why then would federal and state officials hold a joint press conference with BP, given the multinational corporation’s role in the unfolding disaster? Perhaps the reason was hinted at by a comment from the Secretary of the Interior in which he cautioned that the U.S. depends heavily on oil and gas production in the Gulf of Mexico. Even though the White House protested that the oil spill is not President Obama’s Katrina, a public partnership between the perpetrator BP and the government certainly has the potential to become a “Katrina moment.”

Louisiana is trying to deploy 6000 members of the National Guard. Air Force planes have been called in to spray chemicals on the oil. National Guard soldiers in Louisiana are currently “engaged in the planning of the effort to evacuate and provide security and clean up for the coastal communities expected to be impacted by the spill.” They are also planning for the protection of medical facilities, fuel distribution, interstate highways, and power facilities.

Louisiana has already started setting up its shelter program for people with special needs who may have to be evacuated because of concerns about air quality.

Official states of emergency have already been declared along the coasts in Alabama, Florida, Louisiana, and Mississippi.

Along the Louisiana coast, people fear the loss of the fishing industry. In New Orleans people worry about air quality.

Thousands of pelicans, herons, egrets, ibis, frigate birds, and rarities like grebes and albatrosses are at risk from the river of oil. Dolphins are birthing at this time so their offspring are at risk. Shrimp and oyster fishing grounds are being closed.

Air quality for humans is another serious issue. The New Orleans area, home to hundreds of thousands, has already been blanketed by a chemical odor.

The head of the Louisiana State Health Department Jimmy Guidry said the smell is an irritant, affecting people with lung conditions and asthma. He said it is normal for the smell to arrive before air quality checks could detect anything harmful. Officials with the Louisiana Health and Hospitals and Environmental Quality said changes in air quality can cause nausea, vomiting or headaches for people who are sensitive. Air sampling was started by the Environmental Protection Agency Thursday and water sampling started Friday. No reports have been made public so far.

Governor Jindal has asked that the feds declare a commercial fisheries failure for Louisiana. The state supplies about one-third of the seafood harvested in the lower 48 states – about $2.85 billion worth a year. Louisiana has put price gouging laws into effect forbidding the raising of prices on gasoline, petroleum products, hotels, motels, and retailers.

Jindal told the press Thursday that he has asked several times for a detailed plan of how Coast Guard plans to handle the situation, but he has “not seen a quantifiable plan.”

In an ominous note, lawmakers, according to USA Today, say they have been told that not only is light crude headed towards the coast, but so too is heavy asphaltic oil.

“This isn’t a spill. This isn’t a storage tank or a ship with a finite amount of oil that has boundaries. This is much, much worse,” said Kerry St. Pe, the former head of the Louisiana oil spill response team. The Gulf spill is really a river of oil flowing out of the bottom of the Gulf according to the New Orleans Times-Picayune.

In 1975, the New Orleans group, The Meters, released their album Fire on the Bayou. The album cover featured an apocalyptic orange and yellow painting of a bayou ablaze. In 2010 the idea of a fire on the bayou may well be coming true.

Bill is Legal director of the center for Constitutional Rights and professor of law at Loyola University New Orleans. His email is quigley77@gmail.com.

New Report: Excessive Punishment of Minor, Subjective Offenses Results in Racial Disparities

From Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children:

Louisiana's Rate of Suspensions and Expulsions Found to be Far Above National Rate
Excessive Punishment of Minor, Subjective Offenses Results in Racial Disparities

Families and Friends of Louisiana’s Incarcerated Children (FFLIC) and the National Economic and Social Rights Initiative (NESRI) are joining today with education advocates, parents, and students on the steps of the Louisiana Capitol Building to release “Pushed Out: Harsh Discipline in Louisiana Schools Denies the Right to Education.”

According to the report, Louisiana’s expulsion rate is five times the national rate, nearly 16,000 middle and high school students drop out each year, and public schools in the state dole out over 300,000 out-of-school suspensions a year. Within the state-run Recovery School District direct operated schools, the expulsion rate is ten times the national rate and 1 in every 4 students was suspended in a single year, twice the statewide rate and over four times the national rate

State law, as currently written, contributes to the problem, allowing principals to suspend students for a wide range of minor misbehavior, including “willful disobedience,” disrespecting school staff, and using “unchaste or profane language.” For many public school students and parents, these figures merely reflect what they already know to be true from experience. Working in her community, Ashana Bigard hears these stories repeatedly. “Two middle school students asked why students at their school get suspended for wearing the wrong color undershirt underneath their uniform shirt and for wearing the wrong color socks. They expressed their concerns about being suspended for such minor infractions and then missing school and falling behind.

Moreover, the overuse of harsh discipline disproportionately affects some Louisiana school children over others. African American students make up 44% of the statewide public school population, but 68% of suspensions and 72.5% of expulsions. And in school districts with a larger percentage of African American and low-income students, there are higher rates of suspension and expulsion. These districts tend to have fewer resources for positive interventions.

“Pushed Out” makes specific recommendations to change the trend, such as abandoning zero tolerance policies and implementing Positive Behavior Support approaches which, where implemented, have led to a 50% drop in suspensions and violent acts and large increases in academic performance. The report gives specific recommendations to Louisiana state government for how to reduce the number of children who are pushed out of school and thereby lose their right to an education.

The report’s findings support two bills filed this legislative session, SB 628 introduced by Senator Ann Duplessis, that would eliminate subjective behavior as a suspendable and expellable infraction in Louisiana; and Senator Sharon Weston Broome’s SB 527 which requires local school districts to provide training to teachers on effective classroom management techniques. Full copies of the report are available upon request.

Statewide Findings From the Report:

In Louisiana, only 65.9% of students graduate from high school in four years, and nearly 16,000 middle and high school students dropout each year.

The expulsion rate in Louisiana is five times the national rate and the out of school suspension rate is twice the national rate.

Over 86,000 students are suspended out of school, more than 90,000 are suspended in school, and over 7,000 are expelled each year.

When including multiple suspensions for the same students, there are over 300,000 out of school and in school suspensions a year which range from 1 to 5 days each. Even if the average length of suspension was only two days, this would result in over half a million lost school days each year.

State law has contributed to the overuse of suspensions and expulsions. School principals may suspend students out of school for a wide range of minor misbehavior, including “willful disobedience,” disrespecting school staff, using “unchaste or profane language.” Statewide, suspensions and expulsions for these vague and subjective offenses are applied disproportionately to students of color, students from poor communities and students with disabilities.

Schools are 2.6 times more likely to suspend and 3.2 times more likely to expel African American students than white students.

African Americans make up 44% of the statewide student population but 68% of suspensions and 72.5% of expulsions.

School districts with a larger percentage of African American students and students in poor communities utilize more punitive and exclusionary discipline policies and have higher rates of suspension and expulsion.

For instance, in RSD direct operated public schools, where 98% of students are African American and 79% low income, almost 30 percent (28.8%) of students were suspended out of school.

In St. Tammany Parish, where only 18.5% of students are African American and 45.1% low income, only 4.1% of students were suspended out of school.

Research shows that African American students are more likely to be punished for subjective offenses such as “disrespect, excessive noise and loitering,” and that schools impose more severe punishments on African American students than white students for the same infractions.

Schools increasingly involve police in disciplinary matters, resulting in arrests for problems once dealt with by educators.

The American Psychological Association’s national research demonstrates suspensions and expulsions increase likelihood of future behavior problems, academic difficulty and drop outs.

Nationally, students with multiple suspensions are three times more likely to drop out by 10th grade than students who have not been suspended. Youth who drop out of high school are three times more likely to be incarcerated.

While Louisiana spends $8,402 a year to educate one child in public school (including local, state and federal funding), the state spends $105,928 a year to incarcerate one child in a juvenile correctional facility.

New Orleans Findings From the Report:

The expulsion rate in RSD direct operated schools is ten times the national rate.

RSD direct operated schools are 98% African American and 79% low income.

In RSD direct operated schools, 1 in 4 students, are suspended out of school. This is more than twice the statewide rate in Louisiana and over four times the national rate.

Among RSD students surveyed by FFLIC, 60 percent had been suspended.

Seventy percent of those who had been suspended reported at least one of their suspensions was for minor misbehavior including 42% for disruptive or disrespectful behavior, 16% for having clothing or items prohibited by school rules, and 12% merely for being late to class or school.

Among students surveyed 40% had been recommended for expulsion.

Twenty one percent of those recommended for expulsion were sent to a juvenile facility.

Only 5% recommended for expulsion reported receiving any counseling or mediation during their expulsion.

Before Hurricane Katrina, the Orleans Parish School Board spent about $46 per student on school security with a student population of about 65,000. In 2006-2007, RSD spent $2,100 per student with a student population of approximately 9,500. By the 2008-2009 school year, RSD had cut their security budget by more than half, but still spent $690 per student – 15 times the pre-Katrina spending.

From September 2007 to January 2009, there were 492 school related arrests at 54 New Orleans public and charter schools. Approximately one quarter of the arrests were for minor offenses that should not involve police intervention in a school setting and in all likelihood should have been dealt with by school staff, including disturbing the peace, trespass (which often involves being on school grounds after the school day ends), truancy and school fights not categorized as Battery or Assault.

Alternatives to Overuse of Suspension and Expulsion:

Both school-wide Positive Behavior Supports (PBS) approaches and restorative practices have track records of success. Implementation of these policies in schools across the country has led to up to a 50% drop in suspensions and violent acts and large increases in academic performance.

Although mandated by the state to be used in Louisiana public schools, and mandated by the RSD in 2008 to be applied in all RSD direct operated schools, PBS approaches are not fully implemented in many school districts, including the RSD.

Zero tolerance policies sit side-by-side with these approaches, undermining their efficacy.

Recommendations:

State government must monitor and reduce discrimination in discipline policies and practices and reduce the number of children being removed from school for non-violent and subjective behaviors. To do so:

The State Legislature should pass legislation to reverse zero-tolerance policies and reduce out-of-school suspensions and expulsions.

The State Legislature should eliminate subjective infractions from state’s list of suspendable behaviors.

The State Legislature should require that districts provide classroom management training that includes techniques that reduce unnecessary suspensions and expulsions.

The State Department of Education and local school districts should implement preventive and positive approaches to discipline, including PBS approaches and restorative justice programs and best practices for the use of law enforcement in schools