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Nearly a year after being incarcerated in the country’s largest maximum-security adult prison—including being held in solitary confinement and placed in death row cells, youth detainees will finally be transferred from the Louisiana State Penitentiary, a former plantation for enslaved African Americans commonly known as “Angola”.
The children will be released by Sept. 15, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.
In a press release issued on the ACLU’s website Friday, Chief Judge Shelly Dick pulled a 180 from a previous decision and found that officials at Angola punished youth detainees with multi-day solitary confinement, handcuffs, pepper spray, and a denial of family visits. The maximum-security facility also had an insufficient number of social workers and counselors, educational resources, and mental health treatment.