LOCAL MOTHER SEEKS TO CLOSE TALLULAH

After my teen-age son got locked up for drug and behavioral problems, I
learned the brutality of our state's notorious youth jails. That's why I
joined parents in Lafayette and across the state to demand less
incarceration of our kids, and the closure of the state's most inhumane
facility, the Tallulah youth prison.

My son needs counseling and treatment, not cold prison walls. Just four
days before his court date, my boy tried to take his own life. But, instead
of counseling, he suffers daily abuse from the very guards who are supposed
to be protecting him.

Children are treated worse than animals inside prison walls. At mealtime,
the kids are denied utensils and told to slurp down their food like pigs at
a feeding trough. Kids go without any socks and another mother told me that
her son had not had toilet paper in over three days. When he complained
that his stamps were stolen, his only way to access his family and the
world outside, the guards punched him in the stomach. If parents treated
their kids the way these caretakers do, they would be arrested for child abuse.

Nowhere is the brutality worse than at the Tallulah youth prison, where
children routinely end up in the infirmary with broken bones and battered
bodies.

I'm joining parents across the state who are calling for the closure of
Tallulah and demanding that our kids be brought home to safe and effective
community-based programs. Our own state senator, Donald Cravins, has
already come out in support of the effort to close Tallulah. On May 7,
parents will testify in Baton Rouge about the need to close Tallulah.

Most kids don't need to be in a prison in the first place and could be
better treated in community-based programs with caring adults who are
trained to help them. When kids are given the tools they need to grow and
make better decisions, our children and or communities will be better off.

To get involved in the effort to close Tallulah or to travel to the May 7
hearing in Baton Rouge, call (800) 940-7847.

Tressie Cox

Lafayette