Acadiana Center for Youth juvenile correctional center officially opened

It was a day to shake hands, slap backs, congratulate and celebrate. After winning a battle to have Louisiana’s first modern juvenile correctional center built here and then waging a fiscal war to have it at least partially funded, Bunkie and Avoyelles Parish were finally able to say last week that the Acadiana Center for Youth (ACY) is officially open.

A crowd of approximately 100 state and local officials, media reporters, cameramen, businessmen and citizens turned out on a sunny, breezy day as Gov. John Bel Edwards cut the blue ribbon symbolically opening the state-of-the-art juvenile detention/rehabilitation center on March 26.

There are currently 16 residents and 80 employees at ACY. When fully funded and fully staffed, the center will house 72 juvenile offenders and have 124 employees.

‘GREAT DAY FOR BUNKIE’

“This is a great day for Bunkie,” Dr. James Bueche, secretary of the state Office of Juvenile Justice, told the crowd. It was a theme echoed throughout the ceremony.

Edwards said Bunkie, Avoyelles and Louisiana had been “waiting for a long time” for this day.

While the state juvenile facility means jobs and an economic boost to this area, its most important impact is “meeting the needs of some of our youngest and most vulnerable citizens who will reside here.”

Edwards said the new center will operate on a model of therapeutic rehabilitation and not on punishment. It will be more about redirecting lives that went astray, teaching them to make correct decisions in the future, and less about punishing them for their mistakes and past actions.

State Rep. Robert Johnson of Marksville said ACY is “about second chances for our juveniles.”

“When they walk through the doors of this facility, perhaps for the first time in their lives they be be given a second chance,” he said.

State Sen. Ronnie Johns, a Bunkie native serving in the Senate from Sulphur, was praised by several speakers for being an “unofficial member” of Avoyelles’ legislative delegation.

He told the crowd that he left Bunkie 37 years ago, but his parents had always told him to “never forget where you came from.” With that in mind, Johns said, “It’s good to be home.”

Johns said the opening ceremony was made possible because many people, in and out of the Legislature, refused to give up the fight.

State Sen. Eric LaFleur, who represents this area, was unable to attend the event. He was also cited as being instrumental in having the facility located in Avoyelles and in finally getting at least partial funding to enable it to open.

Johns also noted that while the center will have many positive effects on this area and the state, “its real purpose for being here is the youth of our state.”

Edwards said the therapy aspect of the ACY program relies on family involvement in the rehabilitation process.

For that to be effective, juvenile correctional centers need to be smaller and regionalized. The intent is for juvenile offenders to be housed closer to their families so the families can visit more often and be involved in the treatment program.

Most of those housed in ACY will be from central and southwest Louisiana.

LOCAL OFFICIALS

Several local officials attended to welcome the opening of the center. Avoyelles Sheriff Doug Anderson said he is most impressed with the center’s focus on teaching and therapy for the youth at the facility.

“These are children coming from bad environments,” Anderson said. “At this center, they will learn that someone really does care about them. They will learn life skills that will enable them to become productive citizens and make good choices.”

Anderson said this type of facility is needed to help put juvenile offenders back on track.

12th Judicial District Judge Kerry Spruill said this area suffers from a lack of services for juvenile offenders. ACY will “give them a fresh start, a new beginning. “It’s a wonderful day for Avoyelles Parish,” Spruill continued. “And it is a beautiful place, too.”

Bunkie Mayor Bruce Coulon said the previous municipal administration and the citizens of Bunkie deserve a lot of credit for the center becoming a reality.

“They made it happen,” Coulon said. “If they had not pressed it, we wouldn’t be here today.”

PRESS CONFERENCE

In a brief press conference after the ribbon-cutting, Edwards said ACY is the first juvenile correctional facility in the state that has been built to facilitate the therapeutic model for handling youthful offenders.

“The others were built more like prisons,” he said.

The same programs will be implemented in serving those offenders, but the other centers are too large for the type of program envisioned by the therapeutic model.

Edwards said the plan is to replace the larger facilities with smaller, modern, more efficient and less expensive centers like ACY.

He is optimistic ACY will receive full funding when the new fiscal year begins July 1.

He said the Speaker of the House is expected to accept the official forecast of revenue on April 10. The budget Edwards will present will include full funding for ACY.

If the speaker accepts the revenue amount projected by the state economists, “there will be no problem funding this facility,” Edwards said. However, if for some reason that doesn’t happen, the governor said there will be more problems than just ACY to deal with.

Edwards said there should be no problem with the amount of revenue projected to address the state’s budget.

“For the first time in years we have achieved budget stability,” he said. “Our economy is doing better than it has in the past.”

For that reason, there should be no reason to reject the economists’ estimate on revenue available for the budget, he noted.

“Some people just can’t accept prosperity,” Edwards quipped.