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EBR City-Parish leader plan next steps for jail, juvenile correctional facility
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BATON ROUGE - Tuesday afternoon, city-parish leaders began laying the groundwork for designing and building a new juvenile detention center and East Baton Rouge Parish Prison.
The East Baton Rouge Juvenile Detention Center is more than 70 years old, and last year, Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome blamed the dilapidated facility for the escape of a 17-year-old suspected killer.
The East Baton Rouge Juvenile and Jail Task Force has spent the last year touring neighboring correctional facilities and was recently approved for a 90-day program study, led by architects from Grace Hebert Cutis Architects, to make recommendations for the future of the facilities.
Architects showed plans for a new facility, saying the intention is to create educational facilities, training spaces for reintegration into society, comfortable and safe spaces, and secure facilities intended to reduce inmate movement.
District 5 Metro Council member Darryl Hurst says the correctional facilities need overhauls, including with programming.
"I wouldn't want my dog running around the facility, for the feat that he might cut himself with the same metal that comes of the bars, that they make shanks out of everyday," Hurst said.
Not all members of the public weren’t on board with the initial plans. While most agreed the facilities were in dire straits, some were concerned about the motives behind building a new facility.
“The question becomes is this the right thing? You’re telling me the jail will look like the Marriot is one thing, but it’s still going to be jail.”
To collect public input, organizers had attendees write down what guiding principles creators should keep in mind. Architects say they plan to catalog thoughts from the public.
Some of those included the following:
A space where both the staff and incarcerated person feel safe.
Transparent data of solitary confinement and deaths.
Programs for job skills.
Cathy Fontenot is a warden with the East Baton Rouge Sheriff’s Office, and during the panel, she emphasized the issues she sees within the facility, daily. Fontenot emphasized the importance of mental health care.
“People don’t want to come here and help us,” Fontenot said. “We have a crisis in this community that the prison cannot fix.”
The other question was who was paying for the overhaul and how much it would cost. The group says the planning is in its earliest stages, and the answer will become more clear.
“We don't have total yet, and remember we're looking at a number of different needs in the community on is an adult jail the other is for juveniles," Julie Baxter, Chief of Staff for Mayor-President Sharon Weston Broome said.
Organizers say there will be four more meetings, every two weeks at different libraries around the parish.
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