When Juvenile Justice is Unjust: A Million Dreams… Dashed by Society
By: Savanah Hall
Tags: Solitary Confinement, Foster Care, Juvenile Justice, Suicide, PTSD

Photo taken just weeks before Solan’s untimely death

To make a long story as short as I can, Solan’s recent struggle was not only related to the coming of adolescence and his suffering from ADHD and thus having some anxiety and problems in school. He also had anxiety and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) because of past experiences. For the first few years of his life, he was bounced around from home to home. He had at least 10 different homes with at least twice as many different caretakers by the time he was 6. When he was born, his biological parents were both addicted to drugs and neither were capable of properly caring for him. He was moved around between an assortment of family members and foster care placements. Solan was sweet and adorable and yet it seemed as if no one ever wanted him. I can only imagine it seemed that way to him.

For example, one caretaker became so exasperated with Solan because he would cry a lot as an infant, as most do, and would load him up on NyQuil or any other nighttime cough syrup, in a ridiculous effort to make sure he stayed quiet. Another so called, “caretaker” repeatedly yanked and tossed him around, literally thrusting his entire body by an arm or other limb when he cried, or was “in the way,” hollering for him to just shut up. Shortly before his fourth birthday, he was placed by the State of Louisiana in a foster-adoptive home. This was a good family and I was there with him when he arrived at his new home… four of us siblings were moved on this day.

The State foster caseworker told Solan this new place he was at would be his “forever home” and this new family would be his “forever family.”. He was all smiles… slightly apprehensive, very curious, but mostly just relieved and happy. He fell in love with this family and they with him. But for him, “forever” lasted less than two years, because the state first tried multiple times to reunite him with his biological mother and eventually pulled him out of this “forever home.”

From what we understand, his biological mother (our biological mother) gave up on him and he ended up in “respite care” a couple of times and then was placed in a potential foster adoptive home which didn’t work out, before finally going to another foster adoptive home where he was FINALLY, TRULY wanted and where the State would finally allow him to stay. He was 6.

This new home would in fact become permanent, and here he found love but he also found security. After a tough transition, once Solan’s mind allowed him to accept this love and feel safe in this security, he developed confidence and courage and he fluorished.

But as many of us know, there comes a time when we have to deal with the ghosts of our past. It really isn’t a choice. For Solan, the approaching of adolescence was setting the stage for him to have to start dealing with his difficult and confusing past. I don’t think any of us can ever run away from or altogether escape our past experiences without somehow dealing with them. For Solan, in the months before his life ended, the time was arriving for him to begin learning to understand what had happened, to begin to accept his trials and tribulations as originating from the failures of the adults in his life rather than failures of his own, and to gradually begin coping with what had happened to him as he gained this understanding and acceptance. Don’t get me wrong, this is a years’ long process for anyone, but the precious gift of time allows us to gradually deal with the tough times we endured in our early years of life, and to conquer the ghosts of our pasts.

Recognizing his emotional struggles, Solan’s parents engaged him in therapy sessions. On the medical end, his pediatrician prescribed medicine for ADHD and an antidepressant just weeks before his 13th birthday on Jan. 20. Fast forward to Feb. 1, when he set fire to the roll of toilet paper, and his father explained to school faculty and to police that both his therapist and his pediatrician recommended he get psychiatric treatment at LSU-Shreveport or another approved facility. That recommendation was shunned by authorities. The local police said it would be best if they arrested him and took him into custody, because otherwise the media and the public could question why such serious measures were not undertaken. So he was cuffed and taken by police first to his house, where authorities got his medicine, and next transported far away from home… some 70 miles to Ware Juvenile Detention Center in Coushatta, La. Here, he was locked up, as though he was a danger to society (he wasn’t), a violent offender (nope), and a criminal needing to be behind bars (hardly). This was a Friday.

As required by law, he was given his 72-hour hearing on Monday, Feb. 4. He returned to Bossier Parish for this hearing and his Court-appointed attorney requested, at the urging of his therapist, doctor, and parents, that he be admitted to LSU-S for psychiatric evaluation and treatment. The District Attorney’s office recommended he be held at Ware Detention Center until a psychiatric evaluation could be conducted by a court-appointed professional. The Assistant DA assigned to his case based her recommendation on the “fact” that this was Solan’s second offense at the school. Perplexed, his parents inquired about the first offense and were astonished to learn that the school and DA’s office were taking the stance that his first offense occured two years earlier, when he was in fifth grade and disassembled a red ink pen, then used the spilled ink to make hand prints on a wall at the school. For that incident, he lost recess priveleges for a couple of days or so.

The Bossier Parish judge who heard the case, Michael Craig, sided with the DA and ordered he be taken back to Ware Detention Center and kept there until March 11 (for almost 40 MORE DAYS) until a psychiatric evaluation could be given. Coincidentally, Judge Craig was the same judge who presided over Solan’s case as a foster child, and seemingly should have been familiar with his story.