What happened to you at Tallulah was not okay.

Say it plain, before the dates: if you were a boy locked up at Tallulah, whichever year, whoever it was, then this page is about you. Now the dates. Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, west edge of the town of Tallulah, Madison Parish; first boys in on November 16, 1994; the last of them bused out in June 2004, ten years on, near enough. A private company ran it for the state until September 1999; after that the state ran it itself. Somewhere in the middle the United States Department of Justice wrote to the Governor that it had found evidence of sexual abuse and assault there, and a class action was filed for every child inside. And there's a date on all of it: Louisiana's revival window for childhood claims closes June 14, 2027.

WatchingWatching: the revival window closes June 14, 2027. HB 409 of the 2026 session, which would have moved it to June 14, 2029, was referred to House Civil Law and Procedure on March 9, 2026 and went no further; we check for a successor bill each session.

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

This applies to you no matter what

You were in the boot camp, not the main campus. Same fence, same payroll, same defendant. The federal complaint covered both.
It was a guard, a drill instructor, a teacher, a nurse, somebody in the infirmary. Or another boy, while the officer on the dorm slept or looked the other way. The Justice Department wrote both kinds down at Tallulah, and both are the state's problem, not yours.
It was 1995 and the place was run by a private company. It was. Trans-American Development Associates ran Tallulah under a state contract until September 1999, and the state was still the one sending children there. A lawyer sorts out who answers for which years; you don't have to.
Maybe you'd already turned 18, or even 19, by the time it happened; Tallulah held young men to 20, so some of you had. The clock is different for you, it isn't closed, and the deadline section says how.
They sent you up from New Orleans, or Baton Rouge, Shreveport, Lafayette, wherever, and these days you're in Mississippi or Texas. Tallulah drew from the whole state. The case sits in Louisiana and you don't need to.

The Justice Department's findings, the class action and the closing: what the public record says about Tallulah, 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 Tallulah three times in 1996 and 1997. The suits were filed by the federal government and by lawyers for the children, in the federal courthouse in Baton Rouge. The closing was ordered by the Legislature. 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 or a settlement, nobody admitted anything, and we say that too.

1996, after the August tours

The Civil Rights Division's second letter to Governor Foster, written after its investigators had been through Tallulah on August 21 to 23 and August 28 to 30, 1996. It reports that a boy held at Tallulah described repeated sexual contact inside the facility, including with a guard, and that a 14-year-old on psychotropic medication reported being choked unconscious in a bathroom by another boy and waking with his pants pulled down; a medical exam at Tallulah confirmed he had been raped, the letter says, and he was not referred for rape counseling. Findings of federal investigators, not a court; the letter's own wording is more explicit than ours, and it is linked here. US DOJ Civil Rights Division, findings letter to Governor Foster (1996).

1997

The Division's final findings letter, signed by Acting Assistant Attorney General Isabelle Katz Pinzler, covering all four of Louisiana's secure juvenile facilities. "We also found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at each of the four facilities," it says, and at Tallulah it records one juvenile "whose medical chart reveals at least ten sexual contacts while confined at Tallulah, including two with a guard," a boy who had asked repeatedly for an HIV test and not been given one. Of the people in charge: "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. Tallulah's is In re Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, 3:97-cv-00665. Everything that follows was consolidated under it. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, In re Juvenile Justice Facilities.

October 21, 1998

Brian B. v. Stalder, 3:98-cv-00886, filed in the Middle District of Louisiana on behalf of every juvenile confined at Tallulah, against the facility, Corrections Secretary Richard L. Stalder and others. The amended complaint challenged the totality of conditions: medical, dental and mental health care, education, segregation, staff assault and pepper spray, sanitation, visiting, access to the courts. A class action about conditions; it did not plead sexual-abuse counts on its own, and the sexual-abuse finding for Tallulah rests on the Justice Department's letters, not on this docket. Civil Rights Litigation Clearinghouse, Brian B. v. Stalder.

November 5, 1998

The United States sued Louisiana, United States v. Louisiana, 3:98-cv-00947, filed in federal court in Baton Rouge, the first time the federal government had sued a state over its juvenile facilities. The complaint named the State, Governor Foster, Secretary Stalder and, for Tallulah, "Trans-American Development Associates, Inc., ... a business incorporated in Louisiana that operates the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, providing services on behalf of the State of Louisiana." Allegations in a complaint, resolved by agreement, never tried. US DOJ, complaint in United States v. Louisiana (M.D. La.).

September 1999

The state Department of Public Safety and Corrections took over the running of Tallulah from the private operator. The company kept being paid under its lease. Gambit (The Advocate), "Taking Back Tallulah".

August 31, 2000, and January 17, 2003

The settlement agreements. The 2000 agreement covered juvenile justice, medical, dental, mental health and rehabilitative services and access to the courts at all four facilities; the 2003 agreement, captioned under Williams v. McKeithen, 71-98-B, with Brian B. and United States v. Louisiana consolidated into it, 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.).

2003 to June 2004

Act 1225 of 2003, the Juvenile Justice Reform Act, ordered Tallulah closed by the end of 2004. By May 28, 2004, the Associated Press reported, fewer than a dozen boys were left, to be moved within the week to the state's three other lockups. The Justice Department, the AP wrote, "found widespread abuse of inmates by guards had left teens with gashes and broken bones" and that "teens were beating and raping fellow inmates." Associated Press, May 28, 2004.

We checked this on September 22, 2026, and the newest thing in it is from 2003 to June 2004. When something new gets filed or decided, it goes in here within 72 hours, with the link.

Who can be held responsible in a Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth lawsuit

The State of Louisiana. Tallulah was a state juvenile prison whatever the sign on the contract said; the state sentenced children there, the state paid for the beds, and from September 1999 the state ran it outright. Today that means the Office of Juvenile Justice, which took over the juvenile side of Corrections, and it's the State that answers in court. For the first five years there's a second name, Trans-American Development Associates, Inc., the company the federal complaint says "operates the Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth, providing services on behalf of the State of Louisiana." Whether that company still exists to be sued is a lawyer's question, and a fair one. The state does. The theory against it isn't complicated. A guard who abuses a boy in a locked dorm answers for himself. And the state? It hired him. It put him alone with children. The Justice Department told it in 1996, and again in 1997, what was happening, and the place stayed open until 2004. That is the case, right there. Lawyers call it negligent hiring, negligent supervision, failure to protect. You'd call it something shorter.

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. 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.

One more thing, because people ask. The people who worked at Tallulah are not named on this page, not one, and won't be. The federal letters didn't name them, the class action didn't, and no one has been charged in a court we can cite. If a name matters to your case, it matters on the call, not on the internet.

Your deadline: the Louisiana statute of limitations for sexual abuse at Tallulah

Louisiana took the clock off childhood claims in 2021 and then reached backward, and the reach-back has an end: June 14, 2027. Here's the shape of it. Act 322 of 2021 rewrote La. R.S. 9:2800.9 so that a civil claim for sexual abuse of a minor no longer prescribes, no time limit, and it revived the claims the old law had already killed. That revival is the whole story for Tallulah. The place closed in June 2004; under the old law every one of those claims was long dead; so there isn't another door, and every childhood claim about Tallulah walks through this one. Plainly, then. Under 18 at Tallulah, whichever year, 1994 through 2004? You can file. Last day, June 14, 2027. A date, not "no time limit."

The paper trail, for anyone who wants it, runs like this. The Legislature came back a year later, Act 386 of 2022, and restated the revival, only now with a filing deadline on it: June 14, 2024. That date didn't hold, because Senate Bill 246 of 2024 came along and moved it three years out, to June 14, 2027; it became Act 481 of 2024, then law on June 3, 2024, and the Governor never signed it, which happens. The Louisiana Supreme Court had its say as well, in a case called Bienvenu v. Defendant 1. It struck the revival down first, on March 22, 2024. Then it reheard the case, and on June 12, 2024 it upheld it. And this year? A bill to push the date to 2029 was filed and didn't move.

Different clock if you were 18 or older when it happened, and some of you were; Tallulah held young men to 20. 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.

Held there under 18? Then June 14, 2027 is your last day to file. Eighteen or over? Three years, and a lawyer reads your dates. Not sure which? That's the call, and it's free.

Your situation still qualifies even if

You never told a soul. Not your mother, not the public defender, not the DOC investigator who came through after 1999.
You told a captain or a counselor and it got worse. The Justice Department wrote down, in 1997, that the people running Tallulah "either knew or intentionally sought not to know."
You were there for the boot camp, ninety days, and you figured it didn't count. Same fence.
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.

Tallulah, and the other three

You know it was Tallulah; 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: Swanson in Monroe, /swanson-center-survivors; Bridge City across the river from New Orleans, /bridge-city-center-survivors; and Jetson, the old Louisiana Training Institute in Baker outside Baton Rouge, /jetson-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 Tallulah Correctional Center for Youth?

You'd sue the State of Louisiana, which sentenced you there and, from September 1999, ran it; for 1994 to 1999 a lawyer also looks at the private company that ran it under contract. The Justice Department found evidence of sexual abuse and assault at Tallulah in 1997, a class action was filed for everyone held there in 1998, and the federal government sued the state the same year. Whether you can file depends mostly on how old you were when it happened, which is what the questions above sort out.

Tallulah closed 22 years ago. Does it still count?

It counts. The window exists exactly for claims the old law killed, and a claim from 1996 or 2001 is what it was written for. The federal findings and the dockets are public and dated, which is more than most survivors of a closed institution get.

How long do I have to file a Tallulah lawsuit?

Until June 14, 2027, if you were under 18 there, and that's firm. Tallulah closed in 2004, so there's no ordinary clock left on a childhood claim from there; the only road in is the revival window Louisiana opened for childhood sexual abuse claims, and that window shuts on June 14, 2027. The statutes, and the Supreme Court decision that kept the window open, are laid out in the deadline section above if you want them. If you'd already turned 18 when it happened, the window isn't yours; the adult rule is three years, and a lawyer reads your actual dates. So, 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.

Did anyone get convicted for what happened at Tallulah?

Not that we can cite. The record on this page is a federal investigation, a consent decree and a class action, all resolved by agreement in which the state admitted nothing, and a legislative closing. No criminal case against a Tallulah guard appears in it, and we don't name people who haven't been charged. That's not the same as saying nothing happened; the Justice Department said in writing that it did.

I was sent to Tallulah from another parish. Where would the case be?

A Louisiana state court, and only there, because R.S. 13:5106 says a suit against the state has to be filed in one. Which parish is a lawyer's choice, and it doesn't depend on where you live now. Mississippi, Texas, Arkansas, it doesn't matter.

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.