NO MORE PRISONS
The No More Prisons campaign is led by young people and families working to end youth incarceration in Louisiana and invest in communities instead. It is part of a national #NoKidsInPrison movement of youth leaders, organizers and campaigns.
Meet Talisha: “Freedom Is Within Us”
Talisha is one of seven young leaders in FFLIC’s Youth Leadership Cohort, a group of young people building leadership, sharing their stories, and advocating for a future where young people are supported, not incarcerated. Talisha is part of FFLIC’s No More Prisons campaign and reflects our commitment to developing directly impacted young people as leaders in the movement. Through the campaign, her voice and vision have been featured in public storytelling efforts, including a community billboard in New Orleans and the No Kids in Prison Magazine, helping elevate youth perspectives on freedom, healing, and opportunity.
As Talisha writes in her Juneteenth-inspired piece, “Free”:
“free is a frequency
a way of being
be free
i am free
we free.”
For Talisha, freedom is not simply the absence of incarceration. It is a way of living, growing, creating, and building community. Her vision reflects the heart of the No More Prisons campaign: investing in young people’s potential rather than cages and confinement.
In the No Kids in Prison Magazine, Talisha’s creative piece, “The Escape Room,” explores themes of freedom, imagination, and possibility, offering a powerful example of how young people are reimagining what safety, support, and liberation can look like in their communities.
Hear from More Youth Leaders
Young people who have experienced unjust systems of education and incarceration know firsthand what works and what doesn’t. Harold, CJ, and Rio share their experiences, their visions for change, and the solutions they believe can create safer and stronger communities.
Video production by NOVAC
What we Know:
- Youth justice reform is a racial justice issue. Our country’s youth incarceration system is built on a legacy of slavery and racism. Advancing racial justice requires dismantling the youth prison model and replacing it with investments in community-based solutions that promote racial equity.
- The youth prison system is violent and abusive. Louisiana’s youth prisons have a history of being among the worst in the country, with frequent press coverage, public reports, and lawsuits highlighting the abuse, violence, and human rights violations running rampant within them. And yet there has been no accountability.
- Youth prisons don’t actually work or make our communities safer. They make it harder for young people to finish school, get jobs in the future, and build positive relationships that will help them become contributing adults. Youth prison doesn’t actually rehabilitate a young person and it actually increases the likelihood that they will end up in the adult criminal justice system.
- A world without youth prisons can exist. There are examples all over the globe of countries making strides towards eliminating youth prisons – that can be our reality too if we investing in the solutions that we know work.
The #NoMorePrisons campaign demands that system stakeholders in Louisiana
- Recommit to closing all remaining youth prisons in Louisiana, stop new youth prison construction and establish an official moratorium on the construction of new youth prisons.
- Redirect money saved through youth prison closures to community-based supports for youth, including mentorship programs, educational and internship opportunities, and access to quality mental health services.
- Ensure the state follows through on its commitment to investigating Louisiana’s youth prisons– including ACY St. Martinville, Ware Youth Center, and Angola– and holding those who have harmed children accountable.
- Center youth in discussions around youth justice reform.
- Ensure lawmakers recommit to their promise of implementing a holistic model of care for Louisiana’s youth as instructed by the Juvenile Justice Act of 2003 (Act 1225).
Our campaign’s values are the following:
- We believe that Louisiana’s most vulnerable youth deserve respect and dignity as experts of their own experience and equals in the fight for liberation.
- We believe in centering the leadership of Louisiana’s most vulnerable youth, including Black youth at its intersections—Indigenous and Black youth, Afro-Latine youth, LGBTQ youth, womxn, youth with disabilities, and youth who are incarcerated and formerly incarcerated.
- We believe in being in community and acting as accomplices in the fight for liberation for our most vulnerable youth, and follow their lead in dismantling the structures that oppress them.
- We are unapologetically Anti-Racist, and believe in the collective liberation of Louisiana’s Black, Indigenous, and youth of color, and their communities from systems of white supremacy.
- We are abolitionist and believe in investing in holistic community supports and opportunities that affirm the lives of Louisiana’s youth; we believe that prison, policing and surveillance should not be used to solve social problems.