LCCR’s fiscal year came to a close on June 30. Here’s a quick look at what your support helped accomplish.
LCCR attorneys defended the rights of 593 children (through 786 cases) in Orleans Parish courtrooms this past year, and we served an additional 136 children in East Baton Rouge. Meanwhile, our social workers and youth advocates connected our kids with the resources they need to grow up healthy and leave the legal system behind for good. Support from people like you helped:
125 children enroll in school
41 children secure new or improved special education supports (IEPs)
48 children defend their right to an education in school disciplinary hearings
105 children connect with jobs or job training programs
61 children connect with mentoring programs
149 children access care for mental health and substance use disorder
Collectively, these efforts are helping kids like Zoey, Emmett, Jaylah, Campbell, Amaya, and Joshua stay at home with family, remain in school without disruption, and see their prospects for success grow.
In January, LCCR launched our brand new Second Chances Youth Reentry Program, which works to address Louisiana’s lack of reentry programming geared specifically toward formerly incarcerated young people—a group more likely to grapple with the dual challenges of reacclimating to their communities and transitioning to independent living for the first time in their lives. The project is the brainchild of Shon Williams, who had served as LCCR’s outreach coordinator for the past five years before transitioning into this new reentry specialist role. Having himself served 26 years in prison for a crime committed as a teenager, Shon fully understands the challenges young people face when transitioning home from incarceration.
Second Chances provides reentry and aftercare services to young people (~50 annually) incarcerated either short-term in New Orleans’ juvenile jail or long-term in OJJ’s youth prisons. Shon and LCCR’s social workers meet with clients while they are still incarcerated. Working together, they build a comprehensive reentry plan that includes each client’s specific, individualized goals for reentry. This helps garner the buy-in necessary for plan success. In line with best practices, reentry plans focus intensely on:
Additionally plans ensure that reentry clients have transportation, can secure vital documents (state ID, birth certificate), are connected with public benefits (if needed), have the technology needed for independent living (cell phone, Chromebook), and have access to casual and professional clothing.
Upon release, Shon helps clients execute their plans and troubleshoot any conflicts or barriers that may jeopardize success. He also mentors young people on their reentry journey.
“I got into reentry work because a lot of our clients were coming home with nowhere to live, no strong family support, and that was forcing most of them to survive the best way they could,” says Shon. “Even if that was committing another crime.”
Further, “My aim is to find out their goals, and figure out how we can achieve them”
In March, LCCR was thrilled to be named the recipient of a $1 million grant thanks to the incredible generosity of MacKenzie Scott and her Yield Giving fund. A total of 6,353 nonprofits from across the country applied for this funding. LCCR was one of just 361 to be awarded funding. This is by far the largest grant LCCR has ever received in our our 18-year history.
Later that same month, LCCR hosted our biggest Celebration for Children’s Rights ever in the history of our organization, welcoming more than 230 guests while raising a record-breaking $106,483 in support of our work with kids in the legal system. It means to world to us to see so many friends and supporters come together in support of our work and, more importantly, our kids.
Both of these funding victories reflect that the impact of our critically important work is being well-recognized both locally and nationally. And both give us the necessary space to plan and prepare for LCCR’s future work at a time when the vision of our state’s leaders is to incarcerate more children and with longer sentences—a vision which, as history has shown us, will yield a decline in both youth outcomes and public safety.
Despite a legislative session that saw lawmakers double down on the harmful and punitive policies of February’s special session, LCCR was able to secure some big wins on behalf of the youth that we serve:
Creating accessible pathways for young people to get copies of their vital documents (state IDs and birth certificates) makes it easier for them to get jobs, enroll in schools and programs, and can help them get access to transportation and housing.
During this legislative session, LCCR worked closely with Louisiana State Representative Matthew Willard to increase the ease for children—both those who may be system-impacted and those who have not had any contact with the juvenile legal system—to obtain state ID cards and birth certificates.
We believe safer communities can be achieved by providing children with access to education, employment, and a safe place to live. Helping system-impacted young people get that access not only helps them succeed, but also makes it less likely that they will return delinquent behavior.
Big headlines in September: U.S. District Judge Shelly Dick ordered the removal of incarcerated youth from the former death row camp at the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola. In her ruling, Judge Dick cited the state’s chronic failure to keep the children safe in Angola and provide them with rehabilitative programming. Kids there were beaten and pepper sprayed by guards, locked in solitary confinement for days on end, denied family visits, and denied schooling.
On the heels of the closure of Angola’s juvenile unit, Louisiana’s Office of Juvenile Justice announced it would end its private contract with the Ware Youth Center, where it housed the state’s incarcerated girls. Ware had long been at the center of controversy, culminating in a New York Times investigative article which detailed years of physical and sexual abuse, and youth suicides.
We applaud both of these moves. However, these facilities were hardly outliers. Louisiana’s juvenile prison system continues to be in crisis across the board, with many facilities having conditions even worse than those being closed. Children continue to be subject to abuse, get needlessly shifted from site to site, and are routinely denied education and supportive programming. Even the children removed from Angola and Ware were shifted to facilities, including adult facilities, that are woefully ill-equipped to manage their safety and rehabilitative needs. This is unacceptable and runs counter to the juvenile legal system’s mandated focus on rehabilitation. LCCR and its fellow advocates still have much work ahead as we fight to improve safety and conditions for Louisiana’s incarcerated youth.
To learn more about effective alternatives to youth incarceration, check out the Youth Justice Advocates’ Platform for Youth Justice.
In October, CJ McCollum, the Pelicans’ star shooting guard and president of the National Basketball Players Association, stopped by LCCR’s office to learn more about the juvenile legal system landscape in New Orleans. The visit followed McCollum’s op-ed from 2022 in which he called for the community at large to “invest in our children and their futures” by advocating for increased accountability and public safety through policy reforms that “are preventive, rehabilitative and effective” compared to further youth incarceration.
McCollum met with LCCR staff to learn about our holistic defense model. He toured the Juvenile Justice Intervention Center and the Travis Hill School, where he participated in a conflict resolution practice with some of the youth incarcerated there. He also met with Louisiana State Senator Royce Duplessis to debrief about what he experienced, orient himself on the differences between local and state advocacy, and understand the challenges that lie ahead.
“You can’t have a positive outcome with all of the negatives around you,” said McCollum about his visit. “I think we have to figure out how to surround [New Orleans’ youth] with more positives collectively, not just the kids that are here but kids that could potentially be here.”
We’re grateful for CJ’s time and attention on this issue. We’re also grateful to continue working with him on how we as a community can better address the needs of New Orleans’ youth.
LCCR’s Fiscal Year 2024 financials — independent audit report and IRS Form 990 — will be posted here as soon as they become available–typically by the end of the calendar year.
Click here to see what your support made possible in FY 2023.
