New Orleans' Incarceration Rate Is The Highest In The Country

[+EdwardGlen]

Another out of control LEO.

 

 

http://www.aclu.org/blog/drug-law-reform-prisoners-rights/270-million-lockup-will-new-orleans-sheriff-stand-way-rebuildi

 

The $270 Million Lockup: Will New Orleans' Sheriff Stand in the Way of Rebuilding a Smaller and Smarter Orleans Parish Prison?

 

New Orleans' incarceration rate is the highest in the country — the city locks up three times more people than the national average. The city jail, Orleans Parish Prison (OPP), holds nearly 3,200 prisoners and remains the largest per-capita jail in the nation. But Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman wants to use hundreds of millions of dollars in post-Katrina Federal Emergency Management Adminstration (FEMA) reconstruction funds to make it even bigger.

 

One has to wonder why.

 

Rushing to jail as may people as possible comes at an enormous cost to taxpayers at a time when municipalities across the nation, including New Orleans, face mounting budget deficits. And locking people up, especially for low-level, nonviolent crimes, has never been shown to have any impact on public safety. Indeed, investing in alternatives to incarceration, like treatment for nonviolent drug offenders, can make us all safer by helping people to become rehabilitated, productive members of society while avoiding the destabilizing impact incarceration can have on individuals, families and entire communities.

 

The sheriff's proposed expansion contradicts the recommendations of the Criminal Justice Working Group, a special commission that New Orleans Mayor Mitch Landrieu appointed to identify an appropriate future size for the jail. On November 22, 2010, the working group recommended (over the sheriff's dissent) that the city authorize construction of a smaller, 1,438-bed jail and demolish the existing jail buildings.

 

The working group's recommendations rely on a report they commissioned from corrections expert James Austin. Austin's report found that the city would need fewer than 1,500 beds if the city implements five criminal justice reforms that local advocates and other experts have long endorsed. These reforms include setting up a pretrial services agency that could effectively supervise many men and women before their criminal trials who otherwise would languish behind bars, reducing the number of state inmates held at OPP, increasing the use of police summonses instead of immediate arrests, increasing efficiency in the processing of judicial dockets and reducing the length of jail stays for probation violators.

 

Austin's findings are consistent with our own experience, which is that many people arrested for minor, nonviolent offenses are being held unnecessarily at OPP while they await trial. Additionally, a substantial number are being imprisoned because they couldn't afford to pay court-imposed fines and fees. (See our recent report, In for a Penny: The Rise of America's New Debtors' Prisons for more on this issue.)

 

But Sheriff Gusman insists that he needs at least 3,200 beds, and perhaps as many as 5,800 beds, to meet his future needs. So, what accounts for the fourfold difference between the expert's projection and the sheriff's projection of his future detention needs?

 

To help answer that, we sent a public records request asking the sheriff for the evidence supporting his prediction. In response, admitted that he never conducted any study, report or other objective evaluation. Instead, the sheriff relied on his "institutional knowledge and experience" to come up with the number, and did not use "any particular data compilations" as the basis for it. In other words, he pulled it out of thin air.

 

What the sheriff didn't add is that some unusual budgeting practices give him an incentive to build a larger-than-necessary jail. Instead of getting a normal budget, OPP is funded almost entirely by per diem payments from the state and the city for each prisoner held there. So while the sheriff publicly denies that this motivates his demands, that financial incentive makes it hardly surprising that the sheriff's estimates are much higher than the expert's.

 

Yesterday, the City Council embraced the evidence-based projections, voting unanimously to decommission the old buildings and cap the new jail at 1,438 beds. This is a promising sign that New Orleans can relinquish its position as the overincarceration capital of the world to become a national leader in criminal justice reform.

 

But Sheriff Gusman may still stand in the way. The week before the vote, Sheriff Gusman sent a letter to the council stating that he would be "unable to comply" with these limitations, and new revelations suggest that he may be able to build another jail on a neighboring lot without city approval. In the coming months, the ACLU will continue fighting to make our vision of a better, smaller and smarter OPP — a vision now shared with the City Council — a reality. Stay tuned!

[Bisharoo]

[LongHairBri]

I lived in NOLA for a few years. you have no idea how bad it is there. cops will sit at bottom of a bridge and pull over every car, search, pbt and run id. they will pull up in a van and arrest every Mexican in front of Lowe's for loitering when there are crack sales across the street. in the bad areas its the wild west during dark. cops only come in during the daylight to clean up. seems everyone has a scam going and I've never seen so many people from every walk of life abuse pain pills and coke. people would look at me sideways when I'd turn down a half a Vic or a line. it is like no place on earth. there aren't really suburbs. their surrounded by water on every side with no room to spread out. it didn't matter where you lived. within 5 miles of ANY house, no matter how affluent, there are crack slums. 24 hour alcohol sales. drive thru daquiri stands and liquor sales in every gas station. the grocery store has poker machines and a beer counter for brown bag consumption.

 

surreal

[bobandtorey]

Well this may or may not be the right place to post this but Detroit is trying to build a new jail also i will see if i can fine a link

[smokeythebear]

spent 3 days in OPP 5 years ago, alomst to the day.

 

went down to mississippi to rebuild houses after katrina and when mardi gras time came around me and another guy i worked with took a ride. I ended up wasted and slapped a cop horse on the donkey trying to get it to buck the cop. the cop grabbed me and drug me to the cop cars and the whole time i was being filmed by cops or court tv or some crap. they charged me with hiting a cop but i said guilty to cruilty to animals little under $300 fine.

 

That was the craziest bunny muffin i ever seen!

 

the guards didn't give a crap either they would come in and thump someone and say 30 days till you see the judge!

 

I stayed on my bunk for 3 days,lol