From interviews with teenagers incarcerated at Orleans Parish Prison during Hurricane Katrina, conducted last winter by the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana. In May the group released Treated like Trash, a report on juvenile detention in New Orleans before, during, and after the storm. The approximately 150 juveniles in Orleans Parish Prison when the hurricane struck were evacuated to other prisons in Louisiana several days after the city was flooded.

Me and J. were the first to get out of our cells. We had to break through windows and burn down doors to find food and water. After we…