An emergency court hearing is continuing in Louisiana over calls for authorities to transfer children being imprisoned at the notorious maximum-security Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, which was built on a former slave plantation. Advocates say children as young as 14 years old are being held in solitary confinement and are being deprived of their education. Most of the children are Black boys. This is Alanah Odoms, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana.

Alanah Odoms: “Children are currently being locked away in cages at Angola — children, not youth offenders, not juvenile delinquents, not throwaways, not people without value. Children are children. Children are being deprived of an education. Children are being deprived of humane conditions. Children are being shackled and handcuffed.”