Same Massachusetts as a two party consent state. So we should probably just start by saying, can we confirm this is on the record? And is it okay if we record it?
I mean, I can hit record on the Zoom want that? But? Yeah, just I mean, I haven't we have to. I mean, I think it's understood that it's on the record, but we're like, or or it's been shocked to clarify. But Michigan is not a two party consent state.
That was really annoying, I have to say. So yeah, I'm just gonna, like hit record, not mention it, but Okay, so maybe I just won't record it.
You don't record we'll do it. Okay.
Yeah. Yeah, I don't think this is one of those like, situations where we have to worry about it too much.
Yeah, I agree. I mean, I'm, I'm never terribly worried about it, but it's always in the back of my mind. And what kind of documentation is there when a child is shackled? Or put in solitary? You know, not just at St. Martinville. But in general, does JJ have a policy for documenting, you know, the use of solitary confinement or the use of shackles?
So we've also heard that we've also heard from parents from oil, someone's in the room. Should I let them in? Yeah, how do you do it? All right. Okay. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. How
are you? I'm fine, y'all. This is best to share Morgan with the Office of Juvenile Justice. I have some bad news. Mr. Summers was not able to make it. But I do have Assistant Secretary Perry sag with me.
That's not bad news.
That's great. You're gonna get the two of us this morning.
Well, we're happy to talk to both of you. Thank you for making time Mr. Stagg. We appreciate it. All right.
Good morning. Well, hi, thank you so much. Just so since I know where we're on Zoom, we can see each other. You guys arrived home, but just so just so. So it's so there's, there's three of us. On the zoom, actually, first of all, just thank you for coming and for your willingness to talk about this and being open and sharing everything on the subject. This My name is Erin. I'm a national reporter with NBC News. I'm here with Beth Schwartz apple from the Marshall Project and Waldman. From pro publica, we have a number of questions. And I guess I'll just dive right in if that's okay. So, just you know, tell us a little bit about the St. Maarten built facility. You know, why did you decide to open it? You know what? Yeah, well, what we are one of the conversations start around around opening it and just kind of give us give us the backstory.
We used the backend before Oh, he opened St. Maarten. We had in our facility as in sweats once in our Monroe, Louisiana facility. We had a a, I guess you would call it a small cellblock, that was used for behavior management. In the past year, the youth destroyed that cellblock, that was where we would take kids for, you know, brief timeouts or longer transition programs trying to work them back into general population setting when they were being violent or disruptive. But they destroyed that unit. From there, we moved into a another detention facility a few hours south of Monroe. And the same thing happened there. They destroyed that facility, they assaulted staff, hurt several staff. And so we knew that we needed to find a nother setting for these individuals that was a little more security, we can control a little better and try to you know, for the safety of the kids and the staff and for to get us to a place where we can start working with these kids and trying to do real transition rehabilitation trying to work them back into a general setting where we can do the, you know, the work that we want to do the education, rehabilitation substitutes, anger management, all those things that we you know, these kids need. And so what we found was I searched all over the state. That was St. Martin parish share. He had a former juvenile detention facility that he was no longer using. And he offered to see using that facility and so that's where we're at now. It is a it's four pods. It's six closed rooms per pod. So you had 24 rooms and landscape built Putting two in each room. But we try not to do that. We haven't had enough kids there at one time to need to do that. But the general idea here is that we have a handful of kids who are very hot and he, they've been violent against other youth, they've been validated against staff, they've escaped, you know, the creative problems, you know, dangerous situations in the community. And when they're in a general population setting, and when they're acting in that manner. Two things happen. Number one, it really disrupts the flow of the general population setting. And it doesn't allow, it doesn't allow us to help the kids who are participating in programs that we're offering, it kind of it kind of creates a situation where we're helping nobody. And so what we are able to do by removing them from that situation, number one, it's settled down the general population setting so that we're able to really helps the kids that are there participating and trying to absorb the stuff that we're that we're offering them. But what it also does when we can get them to a more
isolated setting, and allows us to separate these kids, offer individual services, work with them one on one, provide mentoring, build relationships, and try to work with them to get them to a place where we can put them back in a general population setting where they can participate and not be disruptive, and, and really progress in their rehabilitation. And the data that we have so far is showing that that is working, the vast majority of kids that we have put in this transition, just behavioral Transition Unit, have worked the program and returned to general population and done well. And it's been rewarding actually, to see some of these kids that were some of our, for lack of a better term, I'm gonna I'm gonna say worst kids worst in terms of the disruptive behaviors that they display, we'll call them high risk, high need whatever, you know, whatever the proper term you want to call it. But it's been extremely rewarding. And I've done some one on one work with myself. In fact, I spent a good bit of time there. Reward rewarding to see some of these kids who were really just showing no progress at all. And you get them to a setting where you can really work with them individually, one on one and try to have conversations with them and find out what the underlying issues are, and do those kinds of things. And our social service staff does a great job at that, along with our security staff, and see these kids that kind of the light from on forum and know them getting excited about getting better about getting education, about, you know, mapping out a future. And we're able to get them back to a general population setting. And some of them have actually become leaders in a different sense when they get back where when they were there before the general population that we were leaving in the wrong direction they were leading, other kids do wrong with them. And then upon their return, some of these kids have become leaders too, in a positive manner, trying to tell the kids hey, look, these people really do want to help us I need to calm down, let's get our schoolwork done, and whatnot. So I really, I really think that what we're doing is working or no. Public perception is never good. When you put kids in an isolated set, we get that, you know, but it's a matter of trying to do the right thing for everybody. We want to do the right thing for the kids there in the general population, we're trying to get better. And we want to do the right thing for these kids who are really struggling. And, and I think it's necessary to have a place where you can work with them individually. And also be able to protect the other youth protect the staff and protect the kids themselves. But but the end goal is to get everyone to a place where they're moving forward in the rehabilitation.
And let me kind of throw in a little bit on that to Aaron. And so the sponson facility that Mr. Sag talked about, is over there are parts of that facility that over are over 100 years old. So what we have going on right now and Fontan in Monroe, is we are rebuilding a new campus within that old campus, we have cleared an area we're creating where we had 52 buildings, we were utilizing over 60 acres, we're creating a compact campus that is going to cover about 25 acres, and it's going to contain maybe six buildings, it's going to have classrooms, it's going to have everything in a location where the kids can, you know, benefit from the most staff and the most contact with staff as they go through for both a security and a therapeutic part.
So it'll be much more conducive to therapeutic environment than what we have nowadays.
And and what it also will include, which is when we want to move away from St. Maarten Ville is it will include in the individual rooms rather than dormitory settings that we've had about other facilities. So right now, we are constrained to a dormitory setting where we have 10 or 12 youth that are living in that environment. And so to that point, it will allow us to have more individualized treatment within that same setting, so they're still returning to a larger campus, they're able to work back into the general population even quicker. You know, so that's kind of this St. Maarten bill is a temporary fix till that construction is completed, which is scheduled for early 2023.
So this facility that they're in right now, you said it's an isolation setting is that it Are they are they are they are they cells and they have bars, and they have doors and windows, we just sort of describe it to us a little bit.
Like I said, we have four pods, each pod has six rooms in it, the room has a solid door with a window and attach it gently see a you know, correct only environment, you know, that you would, you know, put food in through. But the way we're working the program is that during the day, our kids are out of the room, you know, for 12 hours a day, just paying an education, group activities, you know, recreation, all those kinds of things. So, generally, they're out for 12 hours a day, unless they're being actively violent and disruptive at the moment. You know, them of course, we will, you know, secure them to protect their themselves and everyone else's to have the kids, but when they're but 99% of the time, when things are as they should be. They're out participating in group activities, 12 hours a day, you know, at night, everyone goes in the room, we close the door, and we go to sleep, we turn the lights out, we go to sleep, and then we just wake up the next morning and we do it again. And so, you know, they're they're getting a lot out of cell time, a lot of contact with all the various disciplines, you know, mental health, education, social workers, medical, recreation, all those things. And so, you know, there. Yes, it's a it's a secure facility. Yes, we were had the ability to isolate them to kind of secure them. But his goal was to have them out as much as possible. And we're and we're doing a pretty good job of that.
So thank you so much for taking time to speak with us Mr. Stagg. This is Annie Waldman. Speaking the reporter from ProPublica, we have been actually speaking with a number of families of children who have been held at the St. Merville. facility, and over the past half year, as well as several attorneys who have represented youth at the facility. And I know that the data that you sent over this morning, thank you again, Beth, for sending that over your data reflect that at least 18 kids who have successfully completed the transitional treatment unit programming, but we're hearing something very different from families. Essentially, what we're hearing is that kids don't have access to this programming, or at least for the first few months. They haven't we've been told that they've received no education, no counseling, no medication. Can you speak to whether this is true?
That on categorically no, that's not true. I will say this, and this is not something we've tried to hide. We've been very open about this. When we first opened the facility, we did not have education services set up because we were basically in emergency mode. They had destroyed two facilities. We had to get out of the facility we were in we were basically being kicked out by the by the person who was nice enough to let us use their facility after we destroyed it. So we had to move and we had to move quickly. And so we opened this facility, we had medical services stablished. Absolutely 24/7 Medical Service established, we put a security staff together. But we did not have education for about the first month, month and a half. We were working to get that established the entire time. That was not something that we were just being negligent on. It was something that took time to put together. For the past several months, we have had a contract teacher on board. We have another contract teacher for SSC, which is a special education, who is coming on board shortly. We have been trying to advertise for two permanent teachers. For the past several months, I've gotten very little response, which is just you know, y'all. Y'all know, it's just hiring people right now is very, very hard in almost every discipline. We've had trouble hiring security staff, but we've been able to, you know, keep keep it man very well, with a combination of security staff and probation officers that are the system inside the facility. But all the things that we are to provide them by law are on board now. They weren't quite there when we first opened the facility, but we've worked very hard to get them there. And we're steadily trying to improve the services that we offer.
And in terms of the engine, one of the things that was Yep, go for it.
I just wanted to point out to you know, to talk a little bit about size of population, you guys can see that that the majority of the population that's been going through there is is that quarantine. So what that explain a little bit of what that means. So those are kids that are being put into our custody likely for the first time or they're coming From another facility, so they were held there for seven to 10 days before being put into our other facilities for COVID reasons only part of our intake process is that first seven to 14 days, is really looking at each kid assessing their mental health, assessing their medical condition, their dental conditions, their education. So it's a lot of fun transitional piece anyway, because we've got to do tape tests, we've got to figure out where they're going to be educationally. You know, those use and and they're in that Aboriginal like to say, if you look at it was eight and a half days for those quarantine us. So you know, that was kind of a real transition unit right there as far as intake. You know, so
if any of the kids parents or whatnot, you're talking to we're actually goes quarantine, you didn't know, they probably did not get educational services, because like I say in that entire time that there there is an assessment period. And we can't give educational services until we know what services they need. And so while they're doing the tape testing, and educational assessments, those would have to be passed on to their permanent location. After they leave their quarantine period. They're at St. Maarten.
So would it be possible to get the names and the you know, documentation of the teachers as well as the logs of hours they teach, as well as the logs of the, you know, therapies the each of the individuals have received? I know this is a lot to ask, but I you know, I just want to confirm that we can actually get some documentation of what you are saying to be true.
That would be a public records request,
you know, as you go through that process, but it might be easier actually, if you were just willing to provide it to us.
I'd have to that has to go through my general counsel for confidentiality reasons and everything else, because everything is no, we don't keep confidential records, we keep records with kids names on them. So everything's got to be wiped and cleaned before it goes out. But it's not like it's something I can grab and send to you. So it would have to be a public records request.
Okay. And then more broadly, I mean, how do you square that, you know, what you're seeing with what we're hearing from families. A lot of the families I should mention that we're speaking to, they have not been in this facility, the kids have not been in this facility for COVID related reasons. They have been transferred here for behavior reasons. And they still state that they've received no education, no counseling, no medication or other services. So how do you kind of square their perception of what's happening with their children? To what you're saying?
I'll tell you, like I told you, it's not true. You know, we've had medical services there from day one. And I told you how the educational services have have evolved. I've been dealing with dealing in corrections for over 25 years. People are not happy. I mean, people with incarcerated family members are often not happy. The incarcerated individuals themselves are often not happy. They have had any many offenders in the past will tell their parents or their loved ones or their attorney, stories that just aren't true. Just trying to get some sort of reaction from somebody. I don't know what their reasons are, I can't tell you what the reasons are. But I can tell you I know the book about and the things that were said that we need to provide to these kids. Our goal is to help these kids, our goal is not to, you know, just lock them up and throw away the key or feed them bread and water. That's nothing about what we're about, you know, we have good, good staff to care about these kids that really want to see them get better. We take a lot of joy and pride in seeing a kid do better and go home and be successful in society. And I know, you know, people want to make us out in the general public or in the media to be the bad guys. We're not we didn't send it to these kids, we're simply the people that are responsible for keeping them and rehabilitating them. You know, we're not the ones who lock them up. We're not the ones who give them a sentence, we just hold the keys, and we hold the responsibility of getting them better. And that's what we try to do every day. You know, some of these kids are a lot more difficult than others. Some of them are very, very difficult to to deal with on a daily basis. And it takes a lot of work. And it can be frustrating at times for the staff and the kids. But we still work every day to accomplish that goal. You know, we want to save every single kid. Is that realistic? I don't I don't know. I don't know if you can save every single kid. But our goal is to try to do that every single day.
Mr. Stan, and I'm thinking early into as far as parents are concerned. I mean, we have you know, our therapy is tied to family engagement. I mean, that's one of the services that we would like that we've probably struggled the most with during COVID. You know, we prior to the COVID pandemic, we had visitation every weekend. We have a lot more opportunities for the kids to go out on furloughs and escorted absences, incentives, positive incentives that we would give the kids that would help that are Part of our therapeutic program. And you know, in the COVID world, all that has changed, we restarted after restarted visitation a lot we, as as things surge following public health advice. But what we also have here at OJ J is a hotline. And we have investigative services. And we have always tried to maintain with families, the ability to call us, and tell us about their concerns, and try to work through that with them try to explain, in fact, they're our greatest allies and working with these kids, because they're going home to their families. And so if we all work together as a team, so, you know, that is another outlet for them, to call us with those concerns. that's out there. And I don't know if any of these families have done that. I don't know of any of that. But that's an outlet for them.
I don't imagine that you will just tell us who these family members are. And then I'm not going to ask you but in your communication with them. If you would ask them to contact us with those same concerns. We'll be glad to address those concerns with those family members. And we'll be glad to try to help them understand what's being done for their child versus what they're hearing is being done by their child.
So Mr. Stagg, not only have we heard this, though, from several families, we've also heard this from one attorney that during a hearing a case manager for Oh, JJ actually stated that a youth at St. Maarten felt was not provided the services in violation of his treatment plan as well as federal law. We understand for this, oh, JJ was held in contempt by this East Baton Rouge judge. And again, I believe that you might have actually appeared at this contempt hearing if I'm recalling this correctly last November. Is this true? Why was this the case?
Well, I explained to you that we were not providing educational services that we need to in the beginning, because we were in the process of trying to get them established. And that was what the case wasn't that situation. That judge I believe is satisfied now that we're that we're providing educational services that were supposed to.
But it wasn't just education. I mean, what also was revealed at the hearing was that, you know, his treatment plan was not actually being followed to the lack of medication, the lack of substance abuse counseling.
I don't recall hearing any of that, and then hearing, but if that's what you're hearing, I don't know, I know, it's been available. I know, like I said, medical services are available day one with our contract medical provider. They've been they've been, they've been available since we opened the place. And until today, as far as other programming, it's also been available, it's up to the child to participate, you know, we can't force them to participate. But it's, it's absolutely available. And our social workers are there. Our treatment directors, they're often trying to make sure we work with the plans, we do stack things on, at least, but a bi weekly basis, I believe we do staff things to make sure that when we're the how these kids progressing in their plan to adjust plan that we need to. And so all those services have been available since day one except education, which we worked very hard to get it up as run as best we could. But the child still has to be led to participate. We can't force them to do anything.
I don't know if any of y'all have looked at the policy on the transitional treatment unit. Yes, we have. Point having okay. So you know that, that policy kind of describes the services that, you know, are to be put in place, like, again, what Mr. Stagg was talking about. So I think that kind of covers what all the services that should be there. Just
FYI. So that, you know,
we got about 10 more minutes, guys, I'm sorry, we have something else that we got to move on to an end. So it's 924. If we can work till about 935 940. That'd be great.
Well, one thing, just just moving on from that, we're gonna have to figure out how to square the two very different, you know, stories you're hearing from defense attorneys and kids families and from your folks. And maybe it's a matter of the kids choosing not to use the services that are there. Who knows, you know, what, we'll have to try to work to square that. And one way actually, if we could ask you, we can submit a records request if this is the easiest way, but we'd love to know who you know, how many staffers there are, how many social workers, you know, who's a treatment director, could we talk to that person, we'd love to learn more about the things you're telling us. But in the meantime, one thing that's come up a number of times is that is that kids are transferred here and people don't know their families don't know their attorneys don't know. In the case of that Baton Rouge case, even the judge had never even heard of this place. It's not on the JJ website. It does sort of give the impression that it's a secret. Can you speak a little bit to how little the public knows about this place? Like there's not even a phone number for parents to find on the internet if they want to reach their child.
Certainly I can. So the basically, as y'all saw on the paperwork, the facility was how I guess occupied for the first time, August 6 by us, and what the Deputy Secretary summers and I did, right around that time was we attended, began talking about the concept of this type of program need for this program with a lot of the judges that we were meeting in separate meetings, we did not know, we did not make a big announcement and and Mr. Summer was and I realized that after going around for two or three weeks that there was a lot of misconceptions about what was going on at St. Martin Ville, so we should have probably done a better job of that. But we went around, started educating the judges, in probably a series of about 14, community meetings with judges, district attorneys, public defenders were invited a lot of to discuss what the facility was, what the programs were going on in it, what our struggles were with staffing at the time, we've been very open and honest, that COVID started, we've had staffing shortages, and we continue to have them you know, and that has been out there, it is not a secret, I think generally, what should happen when a child is moved from one facility to another as a parent should be notified of that movement. As well as the judge, I believe, by law, a judge is required that we do do letters, and we do send that stuff out, we even have agreements with a few judges right now, where we're talking to them before we move kids, you know, just so that they're aware of the behaviors and the activities that are prompting these moves over to the to the transitional treatment unit. So may not have done the best job in the beginning. But we are by no means hiding this facility. And, and we are, you know, open to parents talking to parents about their children while they are there and the situations they're in.
We actually had a judge yesterday who encouraged us to return a kid to the facility because that judge thought that it was the best setting for that kid at this time to get to a point of where you can accept some rehabilitative services.
But, Mr. Stark, you do remember that at that contempt hearing, like none of the people in that room had heard of the place? Right. I mean, what were those community voting
for? I don't remember that being said and when I was in there,
okay. But I think the contempt hearing was kind of a response to an earlier hearing where everyone, what we've been told is that everyone in the room, the GA, the judge, the defense attorney, nobody, not only did they not know the child was there, but they had never even heard of the place.
I was not at earlier hearing so I can't speak to them. Right, right.
The other thing we're hearing from families is that kids are shackled. When they're when they're in the shower when they're doing programs. When they're eating meals. Can you speak a little bit to the use of shackles that seem Martin Ville and what the OJ J proach. To shackling is in general.
In general, our kids are out unrestrained, doing group activities. If we have a youth who is being presently actively violent and disruptive, we will use restraints to protect our staff and the other youth while they're in the shower. But otherwise, we have to deprive them of a shower or put our staff and the other youth at risk. So yes, if a human being actively violence, and we determined that that is necessary to protect the use of the other youth and the staff, then we will restrain them to get them a shower. But that's few and far between. In general are they are under straying anytime they're out of there. So
is there some kind of document or some kind of blog that staff has to fill out if they do have to use restraints? Do you? Are you do you keep track of how often that happens?
I don't know that from from where I sit again. That's something y'all could put in a public records request. And if there was a record of it, then you could get it.
Okay, okay. So just to clarify really quickly, so you so you said in general, us our youth are allowed to, you know, be unrestrained, but so at the St. Maarten built facility? Is it are are the kids who are there for the behavioral reasons, shackled most of the day, shower, school therapies, recreation time, etc.
Like I just explained to you, in general, our policy is when the youth are out of their cell, they're unrestrained. The only time we would have a youth restrained outside of their cell is if they're present. only being actively violent or disruptive. Alright, but to our user staff,
but since the criteria for moving to this facility suggests that there are behavioral issues to be moved to this facility suggests that the use in this facility are in fact, trackable day.
Right. But that doesn't mean that the user walked into the facility just you know, being violent, you know, they, a lot of them come in, they, alright, this is new is a different, it's a little more, you know, a little more, is a little a little more contained and whatnot. And so a lot of them just kind of sit back and try to figure it out. And a lot of them respond very, very well, we do have a few that will, you know, from time to time get upset about for one reason or another, and want to destroy property or assault staff or assault other youth. And when that happens, we deal with that accordingly, you know, we have to protect that youth from himself, we have to protect the other youth from that, that individual and protect our staff. And so we do what we need to do to do that. But in general, our policy is to have them unrestrained out of their cells, so they can participate in all the group activities and individual counseling.
I don't know if you guys walk through the policy a whole lot, or what the transitional treatment unit programming is, but the idea is, basically to get and just like with all of us, you know, to recognize what the behaviors are technologies, behaviors, and to try to create methods for getting around those behaviors. So like Mr. Stagg, was saying the idea is to return them to general populations. So you know, that is the behavior, their behaviors while they're there, guide their treatment, and help along the way.
Just really quickly, I wanted to ask, just to clarify if this this facility is not a secret, but it's not on the website, it doesn't appear to be in wealth in your materials. And some of the families we spoke with, couldn't even find a phone number for it. They had trouble reaching their their children there. Is that just what's the status of that?
Yeah, so I you know, it is not on the website. And I've I will say that I just, it was really just an oversight. I will say, though, that each parent has each child that is in our custody, retains the probation and parole officer within the community. And that probation and parole officer is as well as the caseworker that works with them in the secure care facility, is there to answer questions for families. So that that never changes. So no matter what facility they're in, no matter where they are, that parent has that probation, parole officers contact information they are we have 11 regional offices that are spread out across the state. So they're generally within probably an hour of where they live. And that is a point of contact for them. So regardless of where the US is, they do have that contact with our agency, and they could at any time, contact that office to get information.
But I will say this, if we have been failing in that respect about notifying parents and kids being moved, I'm going to make it a point, you know, when we get off this interview, to call the people responsible for that and make sure that we get up to speed on notifying these parents because that's important. And we understand that.
So I just I know you have limited time, but I just I mean, I really wanted to articulate how dramatically different the picture that you're that you're painting of life inside this facility, how dramatically different that is, from what we're hearing from Stanley's multiple defense lawyers, from really everybody else that we've spoken with, who's familiar with what's happening in that facility? We they are telling us 20 You know, it's certainly at the very first three months, like 23 hours of solitary, they were telling us, no education, no therapy, no medication. And you know, and we have this remote web and we had one attorney, describe what y'all are doing as cruel and unusual punishment, another attorney use the phrase horrifying to describe what she what she's heard from from youth who's been there. How do you How do you square that? I mean, how can you respond to
that word, what they've heard and not what they've seen, because they haven't seen it. And I have and our staff has, and other people have, you know, and we've exactly what we're telling you we're doing is what we're doing. I don't know what their motivation is, obviously in these things. They're not saying they're making it up. I don't think he is you're telling it to him or what. But you know, I can't. I can't speak to their motivations. I can't tell you what we're doing. I can tell you that I am very proud of the work that I've done in my career helping people who have been incarcerated. I can tell you, I'm very proud of the work that our staff here does, trying to help these you get better. We are not the evil demons that, you know, people want to make us out to be, we are here to help these kids. That's why most of us chose this profession is to help people not to not to be mean and cruel and hurt people. You know, that's, that's not I don't, I don't know what the motivations are. But I can tell you what we're doing. And we are all passionate about helping these youth get to a place where they can function in society, as law abiding citizens, and have happy, productive lives.
I mean, that's why we I'm asked initially for a tour, right? Because it does, you know, if we, you know, we had the opportunity, I understand COVID. And, you know, certainly we don't want to put anybody put anybody's health in danger. But if you could, you know, enable us to talk to people who work there, you know, a social worker who works there, you know, who could who could describe who could give us some detail about what's, you know, or, or, or laws, or just some kind of evidence, because, you know, it's just so dressed drastically different from what we're hearing. And, you know, we could go into a story saying, he said, they said, but that's not gonna help the public, really what would help the public would be a revelation of, you know, just sort of just some, just some documentation, right? If they're lying, and they're mistaken. Show us give us a way of documenting it, you know, without without, you know, exposing anybody to COVID or, you know, there's, there's other ways to do tours, we could do a virtual tour, you know, put a couple of kids on a, you know, on a zoom with us, you could go in there, you know, connect us, you know, by via phone via video, connect us with your staff, you know, and give us the documentation. Because, you know, otherwise it's, you know, you know, I don't know, I don't really know what else to say about that.
I understand, I'm saying confirm, and we do need to wrap up. But I will certainly put all those things, suggestions that you have in front of our deputy secretary and see what he would like to do and how he would like to move forward. Again, I'd like to also just, I know, we work very closely with LC CR, which is the public defenders out of the New Orleans area. And I know that probably some of the I don't know, I don't know, I imagine some of the attorneys that you're talking to are from that agency. Know, we work closely with them on new our Deputy Secretary summers, spent time listening to their concerns and discussing that with them. And we are open to discussing concerns with parents. So I think maybe closing in on that. And if you guys have any follow up questions you'd like, you're welcome to email them to me. And I will also approach with Mr. Summers, the idea of some type of virtual tour or in for I know in person is not really happening right now, some type of virtual score. And just more information to provide you more information that makes you feel like you know, you know a little bit more about the interactions inside the facility. You have my email Aaron, right, that my email is free to send me whatever else you've, you've got, and we will certainly be happy to provide you with what we can.
Well, thank you so much, really appreciate, we're definitely gonna follow up with questions and, you know, and public records requests, if that's what's necessary, you know, hopefully, we can do some of this, you know, without the need for the public records requests, but we're absolutely you know, we'll we'll kind of pursue it and we'll send you a list of all the stuff we're looking for. And then we can go through it and figure out what needs to be a public records request, what you might be able to produce without that sort of extra hurdle. But again, thank you, I really appreciate you taking the time and sharing your, you know, perspectives and experience with this with this facility, and we'll look forward to continuing to discuss this with you. Thank you.