Louisiana officials expect to move the state’s most disruptive incarcerated youth to a revamped, high-security facility in north Louisiana next month.
Construction on a new section of the Swanson Center for Youth at Monroe will be finished by the end of the year, and incarcerated youth from other parts of the state will be transferred to the site in January, said Krystal Stevens, executive management adviser for the state Office of Juvenile Justice.
“We don’t foresee any barriers to the transition of the youth and to the completion of the new facility,” Stevens said Friday at a meeting of the Juvenile Justice Act Implementation Commission.
Swanson already houses 73 boys and young men, Stevens said, but an additional, new 72-bed facility has been rebuilt to make it harder for young people to escape. Each person incarcerated in this section of Swanson will be housed in an individual room, instead of a dormitory setting where several people bunk together.
Portions of Swanson have been closed since they were destroyed during riots two years ago. The violence at Swanson and Louisiana’s other incarcerated youth facilities prompted legislators to…
