HJBR Jul/Aug 2022

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF BATON ROUGE I  JUL / AUG 2022 11 The bill initially would have limited time in solitary to no more than four hours, but after legislative negotiations, it was amended to allow isolation for up to eight hours at a time and up to three stints in a row, for a maximum of 24 hours. During that time, a mental health professional must try to help the person in solitary calm down at least every hour and staff must check on them every 10 minutes. The law also requires that the state provide juveniles in solitary confinement with reading materials, ac- cess to sunlight and an opportunity to contact their parents or guardians and their attorneys. The law does not apply to juvenile facilities that house minors who’ve been accused but not convicted of crimes because those facilities — mostly run by local jurisdictions — are regulat- ed by the state’s child welfare agency, which al- ready has policies limiting solitary confinement. The law covers youth prisons run by the state’s Office of Juvenile Justice, which isn’t subject to oversight by other agencies, but youth and their families will now be able to take the agen- cy to court if it violates the law. “We finally have tools with which to hold them accountable, when previously we had none,” Duplessis said. Medical experts and youth advocates have long decried the use of solitary confinement, saying it can lead to depression and, in some cases, psychosis. The practice is considered particularly harmful for youth, whose brains are still developing. The American Medical Association, the American Psychological As- sociation and the United Nations have all condemned the practice. In 2016, the federal government banned solitary confinement for juveniles at its facilities, citing the harm that isolation can cause. More than half of suicides in juvenile facilities involve children who are, or recently were, in isolation, research has found. One of the boys whose deaths prompted the recent debate about solitary confinement for juveniles in Louisiana was Solan Peterson, 13. He was placed in solitary after his arrest in 2019 for allegedly setting toilet paper on fire in the bathroom at his middle school. Solan was in a private detention facility that holds minors ac- cused of crimes. That facility would not be af- fected by the new law, but Solan’s father, Ron- nie Peterson, applauded its passage as positive development, though he said he would like to see solitary confinement abolished alto- gether. “It is encouraging. I think it’s a good step. I just don’t think it’s enough,” he said. Lawmakers held hearings last year on the use of solitary confinement in juvenile facili- ties, ultimately ordering the auditor’s report. Despite that scrutiny, the state’s Office of Ju- venile Justice last summer quietly opened St. Martinville. The new facility was set up to iso- late teens in cells for weeks or months at a time. Sommers initially defended the state’s actions at St. Martinville, describing the facility as “born of necessity,” in the wake of several high-pro- file, violentincidents at dormitory-style facilities as the agency struggled to find enough staff. But during hearings for the new leg- islation, Sommers acknowledged the state needed to make changes to the way it handles solitary confinement. “There is no doubt that we have a se- vere staffing shortage, but this is the right thing to do here,” he told lawmakers. D’Angelo Davis, 21, testified in the House in April that during the four years he spent in state juvenile facilities, staff typically used solitary confinement unfairly. Isolation provided none of the therapeutic or educational benefits that juvenile facilities are meant to provide, he said. Inarecent interview,Davispraisedthepassage of the bill, adding that it showed that lawmakers “actually care about what’s going on with kids.” “Think about yourself inside of a four-wall box. You go days without showering, you barely eat the food they give you,” he said of his experience. “Once you see yourself, you don’t even look like yourself. You’re a whole different person. … It deteriorates you.” n what’s expected of them, and that is some- thing that hasn’t been there before,” said Rachel Gassert, policy director at the Loui- siana Center for Children’s Rights. “And un- like agency policy, it cannot be changed be- hind closed doors by political appointees.” The new law places strict constraints on how the state juvenile justice agency can use solitary confinement, limiting young people to no more than eight hours in isolation unless they con- tinue to pose a physical threat to themselves or others. The agency is also required to, within the first hours of placing children in solitary confinement, check on their mental health and to notify their parents or guardians. The law ad- ditionally compels the agency to better track and report the use of isolation in its facilities. With the new law, Louisiana joins about one-third of states that have laws restrict- ing the use of solitary confinement for youth. Many of the remaining states lack any poli- cies limiting solitary confinement at all. When Duplessis introduced the solitary confinement bill in March, he wasn’t confi- dent it would win enough support to pass. “This is Louisiana,” he said. “We have a history, a long history of being puni- tive, and our history with respect to ju- venile justice has not been a good one.” When the bill came before a House com- mittee in April, several Republican lawmakers initially expressed skepticism, raising concerns that the bill would tie the hands of juvenile justice authorities who have been dealing with escapes and violence at their facilities. But after a hearing in which young people shared stories about the trauma they expe- rienced in solitary confinement, the com- mittee unanimously voted to advance the bill. It later passed both legislative houses by large margins after Bill Sommers, who leads the state’s juvenile justice agency, threw his support behind the measure. The House hearing took place just days after a legislative auditor released a report that found that the state’s juvenile justice agency often violated its own rules on isola- tion, which allowed the state to hold youth in solitary confinement for up to seven days. In 2019 and 2020, about 40 percent of solitary confinements exceeded the maximum dura- tion allowed under agency policies. The audit found that, on average, confinements lasted about six days, more than 14 times as long as the national average as of October 2020. “The new law places strict constraints on how the state juvenile justice agency can use solitary confinement, limiting young people to no more than eight hours in isolation unless they continue to pose a physical threat to themselves or others.”