BATON ROUGE — More than 50 lawsuits have been filed against the former Jetson Center for Youth, alleging sexual abuse by correctional officers who worked at the shuttered East Baton Rouge Parish juvenile facility — a wave of litigation landing just as the state moves ahead with plans to reopen part of the same site.
According to WBRZ's Investigative Unit, 52 lawsuits have been filed on behalf of alleged victims over the past two months, naming correctional officers who worked at the Louisiana Training Institute and the Jetson Center for Youth. The suits allege officers abused children ranging in age from 11 to 17 who were in the state's custody, with the allegations spanning from 1972 to 2005. Jetson officially closed its doors in 2014 after years of reported problems, including juvenile escapes and substandard conditions.
Antonio Travis, Leadership Development Manager with Families and Friends of Louisiana's Incarcerated Children, told WBRZ the lawsuits don't surprise him. "You know we've been advocating for a long time, 25 years to be exact, for this institution to adopt a more restorative approach to how they deal with our young people," Travis said. He argued that rebuilding Jetson under the same punitive model that produced these allegations risks repeating the same outcomes: "We're going to get the same results, we're going to get the same stories, right, we're going to keep getting these things over and over again."
That warning lands at a pointed moment. Rather than being permanently retired, part of the Jetson campus is currently being brought back into service by the state.
The Louisiana Office of Juvenile Justice has been planning to reopen a section of the Jetson site in Baker to help relieve overcrowding elsewhere in the state's youth prison system, with agency undersecretary Jason Starnes telling lawmakers the department intends to move roughly 36 low- to moderate-risk youth into a renovated dorm unit there. Officials have said they're adding fencing and security cameras and completing remodeling work ahead of reopening, with a target as early as this year. A separate, newly constructed 72-bed facility is planned for the same site, intended to serve as an intake and diagnostic center, with completion expected in 2027-2028.