Louisiana’s governor announced this week that the state will temporarily move some teens locked up at a troubled youth facility to the notorious adult penitentiary at Angola following a series of violent incidents and escapes. The decision tramples modern principles of juvenile justice and could lead to violations of federal law, advocates and experts say.

"Moving kids to your adult maximum security prison campus, where you send adults to die," a former Louisiana official said, "is the worst juvenile justice policy decision probably ever made in modern times."