What happened to you at Jetson, or at LTI before that, was not okay.

Same campus, three names. It opened in 1948 on Old Scenic Highway outside Baker, the state's segregated reform school for Black boys. After desegregation, in 1969, it became the Louisiana Training Institute, and sometime in the 1990s the state renamed it for Louis Jetson, and in January 2014 it closed for good. Then this summer 52 lawsuits landed in the parish courthouse, in a parish where nobody has ever needed "LTI" explained to them. They say officers there sexually assaulted children, kids between 11 and 17, over a stretch running from 1972 to 2005, and threatened them if they told. Complaints, not verdicts; nothing in them is proven. But the Justice Department wrote to the Governor in 1996 and 1997 about this same place, and a federal consent decree followed. If you were one of those kids, this is about you, and it comes with a date: June 14, 2027 is the last day.

WatchingWatching: the revival window closes June 14, 2027 (HB 409 of 2026, which would have moved it to 2029, was referred to House Civil Law and Procedure on March 9, 2026 and went no further); the East Baton Rouge Parish docket numbers for the 52 suits, which no report has printed; and the campus's reopening, which missed its April 2026 target.

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6 questions. Your answers are private and go to one person.

This applies to you no matter what

The 52 complaints filed this summer reach back to 1972, on purpose. So if the sign still said LTI when you were there, the '70s, the '80s, years before anyone said Jetson, that's covered. Same campus, same state.
You were a girl there. Jetson held girls as well as boys; the Justice Department's 1997 letter counted 150 of them. Nothing on this page is only for the boys.
It happened on a work detail. Many of the 2026 complaints, WBRZ reported, describe staff isolating a kid while he was out on a work assignment. If that's your story, it's a story already told 52 times in the parish courthouse.
It wasn't an officer at all but a teacher, say, or a counselor, a nurse, the man who ran the kitchen. The state hired every one of them.
Or it was later, after 2005, any time up to the day it closed in 2014. The complaints stop at 2005 for one reason: that's as far as the people who've come forward go. Nothing changed on that date. The window covers you the same.
You've already talked to the firm that filed the 52, or you haven't and you don't want to be number 53 in somebody else's file. Either way, say so in the last question. It changes nothing about whether you have a case.

The Justice Department's findings, the consent decree and this year's 52 suits: what the public record says about Jetson, and when

None of what follows is ours. The findings were made by the Civil Rights Division of the United States Department of Justice after its investigators toured Jetson three times in 1996. The federal case was filed by the government in Baton Rouge and settled by agreement. The 52 suits were filed this summer by former residents and their lawyers in East Baton Rouge Parish, and WBRZ and the Louisiana Illuminator wrote them up. Every line links to where it came from. Where a complaint is the source it's an allegation and we say so; where it's a consent decree, nobody admitted anything, and we say that too.

July 15, 1996

The Civil Rights Division's first letter to Governor Foster, after its June tours of two facilities, Jetson and Bridge City. It told him, in the Division's later words, that it "had uncovered serious systemic problems with staff abuse and juvenile-on-juvenile violence at these two facilities." Investigators were at Jetson June 5 to 7, July 24 to 26 and December 17 to 18, 1996. Findings of federal investigators, not a court. US DOJ Civil Rights Division, letter to Governor Foster, July 15, 1996.

1997

The Division's final findings letter, signed by Acting Assistant Attorney General Isabelle Katz Pinzler, covering Jetson, Tallulah, Swanson and Bridge City. "We also found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of the four facilities," it says; at Jetson it records that "a guard repeatedly whipped two females with a belt," one because it was her birthday, the other because she was about to be discharged. Of the people running the four institutions: "It is clear that these men and women either knew or intentionally sought not to know of the serious violence to children that was occurring." The Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse dates this letter June 13, 1997. US DOJ Civil Rights Division, final findings letter (1997).

July 16, 1997

Chief Judge Frank J. Polozola of the Middle District of Louisiana ordered a master juvenile docket, In re Juvenile Justice Facilities, 3:97-cv-00001, with a separate file for each facility. Jetson's is In re Jetson Correctional Center for Youth, 3:97-cv-00666. The Clearinghouse lists the issues as assault and abuse by staff, sexual abuse by residents, medical and mental health care, totality of conditions. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, In re Juvenile Justice Facilities.

November 5, 1998

The United States sued Louisiana, United States v. Louisiana, 3:98-cv-00947, filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, naming Jetson Correctional Center for Youth among the four. "It is clear that federal court action is the only way to protect juveniles in Louisiana's secure correctional facilities from unlawful conditions," the Acting Assistant Attorney General said that day. Allegations in a complaint, resolved by agreement, never tried. US DOJ press release, November 5, 1998.

August 31, 2000, and January 17, 2003

The settlement agreements, Jetson included. The 2000 agreement covered juvenile justice, medical, dental, mental health and rehabilitative services and access to the courts; the 2003 agreement added an independent monitor and required the state's Project Zero Tolerance investigators to investigate "sexual abuse or sexual activity between at least two people one of whom is a juvenile," with medical staff to report it. Agreements, not findings; the state admitted nothing in them. The federal case closed May 2, 2006. US DOJ, 2003 Settlement Agreement (M.D. La.).

January 2014

Jetson closed. The Legislature had allowed it in Act 565 of 2008; state officials, the Louisiana Illuminator reported, called the campus old and obsolete, some of its buildings dating to 1948. The remaining youth went to Bridge City and Swanson. From 2016 the buildings held adult women after the St. Gabriel prison flooded. Louisiana Illuminator, November 26, 2025.

August 5, 2026

WBRZ's investigative unit reported 52 lawsuits filed over the previous two months in East Baton Rouge Parish. They allege, in the station's words, that "correctional officers working at the Louisiana Training Institute and Jetson abused children, ages ranging from 11 to 17," who were "forcibly raped by officers and objects, forced to give and receive oral sex, touched inappropriately and threatened if they were to tell anyone," between 1972 and 2005. "Many of the allegations include details that staff members would isolate the alleged victims while they were on a work assignment." The officers are not named in the suits; Daniel Meyer, one of two lawyers for the plaintiffs, told the station the law doesn't allow it, and that in some cases the same officer is connected to more than one plaintiff. No docket numbers have been published. Allegations, every one. WBRZ Investigative Unit.

August 12, 2026

The Louisiana Illuminator, on the state's plan to reopen the campus: the 52 suits allege officers "sexually abused youth between the ages 11 and 17 in their care between 1972 and 2005," and were filed under the state's look-back window as civil claims only. "None of the allegations have been proven in court." The reopening had missed its April target and the campus was not yet housing youth. Louisiana Illuminator, August 12, 2026.

We checked this on September 22, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from August 12, 2026. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Jetson Center for Youth lawsuit

The State of Louisiana. Jetson was state-owned and state-run from the day it opened, through the Department of Corrections and, later, the Office of Juvenile Justice, and it's the State that answers in court. Not a private operator, not a parish. The theory isn't complicated. An officer who rapes a child on a work detail answers for himself. But the state hired him. The state put him alone with children out past the dorms. The state heard from the Justice Department in 1996, and again in 1997, exactly what federal investigators had found, then signed a consent decree promising to investigate sexual abuse, then kept the place open until 2014. That, all of it together, is the case. The lawyers call it negligent hiring, negligent supervision, failure to protect. The 52 complaints, as reported, describe threats to keep kids quiet; that's the part a court would call knowledge, and it's what the case turns on.

Because the defendant is the state, three things are different, and every one is a fact to know before the call, not a reason to skip it. The amount the state can be made to pay one person for what the law calls general damages, the pain and the rest of it that isn't a medical bill or a lost wage, is capped at $500,000, under R.S. 13:5106; medical care and lost earnings sit outside the cap. The suit has to be filed in a Louisiana state court, same statute, which is why the 52 sit in East Baton Rouge Parish and not in federal court. And a suit against the state is ordinarily decided by the judge rather than a jury, R.S. 13:5105, unless one side asks for a jury in time. None of that changes whether you have a case. It changes what a lawyer tells you it's worth, and we'd rather you hear it here than be surprised later.

About names. No officer or employee is named on this page, and none will be. The 2026 complaints don't name them; the plaintiffs' lawyer told WBRZ the law doesn't let a suit name state employees this way, and in any event nobody has been charged in a court we can cite. If a name matters to your case, and it might, since the same officer is reportedly tied to more than one plaintiff, it matters on the call, not on the internet. And one thing this page will not say: that there's a settlement, or a fund, or a number. There isn't. Fifty-two suits were filed. That's all that has happened.

Your deadline: the Louisiana statute of limitations for sexual abuse at Jetson or LTI

Louisiana took the clock off childhood claims in 2021 and then reached backward, and the reach-back has an end: June 14, 2027. Plainly, before any statutes: if you were under 18 at LTI or Jetson, any year up to the closing in 2014, you can file, and the last day to do it is June 14, 2027. A date, not "no time limit." It used to be June 14, 2024, and would've closed already; Senate Bill 246, now Act 481 of 2024, pushed it out, and became law on June 3, 2024 without the Governor's signature. The 52 Jetson suits exist only because of this; they were filed under the window, the Illuminator reported, and every year of the conduct they describe, 1972 to 2005, was dead under the old law.

Different clock if you were 18 or older when it happened. Civil Code article 3496.2 gives three years for a sexual assault claim, running from the injury or from the day law enforcement tells you who it was, whichever is later, and the revival window doesn't reach those claims. That doesn't mean nothing can be done. It means a lawyer has to look at your actual dates before anyone says anything, and it's why the questions ask your age, not just the year. One more wrinkle for everyone: if you're 21 or older when you file, and you are, the statute requires a certificate from a lawyer and from a licensed mental health practitioner before the state can even be named, which is paperwork the firm does, not you.

And the history, since somebody always asks. Act 322 came first, in 2021; it rewrote R.S. 9:2800.9 so that a civil claim for sexual abuse of a minor doesn't prescribe anymore, ever, and (this is the part that matters for a place that closed in 2014) it revived the old claims the prior law had killed. Act 386 of 2022 restated the revival and hung a filing date on it: June 14, 2024. The Supreme Court nearly took the revival away in Bienvenu v. Defendant 1: struck down on March 22, 2024, then, after a rehearing, upheld on June 12, 2024.

So: under 18 when you were held there, the last day is June 14, 2027, and it's worth writing on something. Eighteen or over, three years, and a lawyer reads your dates. Not sure which? That's what the call is for, and it costs nothing. One last thing, because people ask: a bill to push the date to 2029 was filed this year, got referred to committee, and went nowhere, so 2027 it stays.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not your mother, not the public defender, not the Project Zero Tolerance investigator the consent decree put on the campus.
You told somebody and it got worse. The complaints filed this summer describe exactly that, threats for telling; the Justice Department wrote in 1997 that the people in charge "either knew or intentionally sought not to know."
It was 1975 and the place was called LTI and you're 65 now. The 52 complaints reach back to 1972 on purpose.
You don't have a word for what happened and you're half sure it wouldn't qualify. That's for a lawyer to weigh, not you.
You've been locked up since, as an adult. It doesn't change whether the state owed you as a child.
You live in Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, anywhere. The case sits in Louisiana and you don't need to.

Jetson, LTI, and the other three

One campus, on Old Scenic Highway between Baker and Scotlandville, whatever it was called the year you were there; the questions just need it said. The Justice Department's 1997 letter named four places, and the other three have pages of their own being built alongside this one: Tallulah in Madison Parish, /tallulah-correctional-center-survivors; Swanson in Monroe, /swanson-center-survivors; and Bridge City across the river from New Orleans, /bridge-city-center-survivors. Somewhere else in Louisiana, Jena, a parish detention center, a group home? Second option in the first question, and say where.

Questions people are asking

Can I sue for abuse at Jetson Center for Youth or LTI?

You'd sue the State of Louisiana, which owned and ran it under every name it had. 52 people did this summer, in East Baton Rouge Parish, over conduct from 1972 to 2005; the Justice Department found evidence of sexual abuse and assault there in 1997 and the state signed a federal consent decree. Whether you can file depends mostly on how old you were when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

Is there a Jetson settlement or a fund?

No. Fifty-two suits were filed between roughly June and August 2026. None has been decided, none has settled that anyone has reported, and there is no claims fund. Anyone who tells you there's a number for Jetson is guessing. What exists is a courthouse, a window that closes June 14, 2027, and a free call.

Is there a deadline to file a Jetson lawsuit?

Yes. June 14, 2027, and it's a hard one. That's the day Louisiana's revival window for childhood sexual abuse claims closes, and every childhood claim about Jetson or LTI has to go through that window, because the place closed in 2014 and the old law had already killed every one of those claims; the statute is R.S. 9:2800.9, and the deadline section above walks through Act 322 of 2021, Act 481 of 2024 and the Supreme Court's June 12, 2024 ruling. If you were 18 or older when it happened the window doesn't reach you; Civil Code article 3496.2 gives three years instead, and a lawyer needs to read your actual dates before anyone says anything. Not "no deadline." A date.

What does it cost?

Here, nothing. Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing, and you owe no costs or expenses either.

Why aren't the officers named?

Because the complaints don't name them, and neither will we. The plaintiffs' lawyer told WBRZ the law doesn't allow state employees to be named in these suits; separately, no one has been charged in any court we can cite, and we don't name people who haven't been. It doesn't stop a case. The same officer is reportedly tied to more than one of the 52, and that's the kind of thing a lawyer works with on the call.

Jetson is reopening. Does that change anything?

Not for you. The state is refurbishing the Baker campus and planning a new 72-bed building; the reopening missed its April 2026 target. Your claim is about what happened there between 1948 and 2014, and it doesn't care what the state builds now.

Who sees your form

Kerim Eravci · Survivor Advocate · Not a lawyer

I was a victim, and I waited. Not because I didn't know what happened to me (I knew every day), but because I'd decided it was over, mine to carry, nobody's business. When I finally went looking for a lawyer, the answer came back in two words I'd never thought about: statute of limitations. My time had run out while I was busy getting through it.

What that has cost me since is a long story, and I'll tell you the whole thing in private, if you want it. The short version is the reason my name is on this page: I'm here to help people do what I wish I'd done, which is find out where you stand while the door's still open.

I'm not a lawyer. I read what you send, I call you once, on your terms, and nothing gets filed unless you say so. Ask sooner than I did.

Kerim Eravci is not an attorney. He's a survivor.

What happens next. Three steps, nothing more until you say so.

You answer 6 questions. Nothing is filed. Nothing starts.
A survivor calls you, once. Not a robot, not a call center. Someone who has been where you are.
You decide. You find out your options. If you want to stop there, you stop there.

How this works

ME2 Survivors Alliance protects the heart. Licensed Louisiana attorneys do the legal work. We are not lawyers and we don't pretend to be.

You never pay a dollar

Every case is on contingency. There is no charge for the call, the review, or the case. The firm is paid only out of a recovery, and if there is no recovery you owe nothing.