Alabama fed up housing Louisiana’s juvenile offenders, local law enforcement scrambling to find solution

Louisiana’s juvenile jail struggles continued Thursday as some local law enforcement officials were informed Alabama would no longer help them house their young, violent offenders.

Iberville Parish District Attorney Tony Clayton, who oversees prosecutions in Iberville and West Baton Rouge parishes, told WBRZ that officials in Alabama have asked them to pick up their juvenile offenders currently being held there.

Clayton said officials in Alabama were tired of dealing with the teens because of how much trouble they caused at their facilities. Clayton says his district currently has a couple juveniles being housed there, but it’s unclear whether other agencies in Louisiana were being ordered to pick up other offenders as well.

Clayton’s district does not have its own juvenile jail, and he says his only option is to find another jurisdiction willing to house them or send them home with ankle monitors. Clayton says he’s having an emergency meeting with a local judge to determine what to do next. 

Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice has been the subject of numerous WBRZ Investigative Unit reports over failures at the department. Among the problems was a rash of jailbreaks at facilities across south Louisiana in recent months.