COVID-19 Lockdowns Have Been Hard On Youth Locked Up
When the pandemic hit last March, David was visiting his family on a furlough from the Swanson Center for Youth. That's a state juvenile facility in Monroe, La. He was finishing up a four-year sentence that began when he was 17.
David (we're not using his last name to protect his privacy) was planning on going "mudding" that weekend with some friends — riding all-terrain vehicles in a mud pit. But Swanson said he had to come back a day early.
On the drive back, David's parents worried silently that they wouldn't see him for a long time. "We try not to put our feelings on him," says his mother, Judy. "But of course, he knew we were upset ... all three of us cried when we left."
In fact, David didn't see his family again in person for nearly six months, until he was released. The state canceled all furloughs home, and all in-person visits due to the pandemic. It was more than one year later, on March 20, 2021, that those visits finally resumed.
For this story NPR visited young people and their advocates in Louisiana and spoke to advocates for court-involved youth around the country. They say the pandemic
