BATON ROUGE, La. — Approximately half of the inmates at the Bridge City Youth Center will be moved to a location at the Louisiana State Penitentiary and additional security will be added to the Jefferson Parish facility in an effort to thwart incidents like this weekend's escape from the center that ended in a violent carjacking and shooting, Governor Edwards announced Tuesday.
Edwards also said that additional security would be added to the Bridge City facility that will include services provided by the Department of Corrections, State Police and the Jefferson Parish Sheriff's Office.
The governor added that three employees of the Office of Juvenile Justice have been placed on administrative leave pending an investigation into this weekend's escape.
"It's obvious to me that we had a leadership failure at Bridge City," said Edwards. "That compounded some of the other challenges we have there."
Bridge City currently houses 50 juveniles and approximately half of those will be moved to the separate facility at Angola with the other half, who are considered less violent or at-risk, remaining.
Edwards said that the youth moved to the adult state penitentiary in Angola will be housed in a completely separate building located in an area that he described as secure, separate and isolated from adult inmates.
"This is not the perfect or ideal plan, but I do believe that the situation demands an immediate response and these are the best options we currently have," he said.
Edwards said that while at the state penitentiary, the youth would still be seen by the Office of Juvenile Justice and would still receive all of the youth services, including schooling.
There is also a plan to renovate part of a facility in Jetson, where the youth would eventually be moved, but that is a longer term plan.
The Bridge City Youth Center has seen more than two dozen detainees escape since April 2021.
This past weekend six juvenile offenders escaped. Five of them allegedly stole a truck and crashed it into a police cruiser several times before they were apprehended.
A sixth escapee is accused of carjacking and shooting a man Uptown. He was eventually chased down and caught after crashing a stolen vehicle.