N.O. awarded grant to reduce jail population

The City of New Orleans has been selected to receive a grant from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation to create a more fair and effective local justice system, Mayor Mitch Landrieu announced last week.

New Orleans is one of 20 jurisdictions selected to receive the $150,000 grant as part of the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, a $75 million initiate to reduce over-incarceration in America by challenging the way communities think of and use jails.

New Orleans boasts the highest incarceration rate in the state of Louisiana, which itself has the highest rate of incarceration in the nation and the world. According to the mayor’s office, they’re hoping to use the MacArthur funding to bolster current efforts to interrupt the “cycle of incarceration by employing smart policies to minimize the use of local detention.”

“We have done major work since Katrina and in the last five years to reduce the local prison capacity from 7,500 to just over 1,800. But there is more work to be done,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “I have asked the leaders of the criminal justice system to work with me to make smart decisions about how we arrest, detain and prosecute. Now, with the McArthur Foundation’s help, we want to continue reducing the overuse of jails and uphold New Orleans’ reputation as a laboratory for innovation and change. We are proud of our collaboration with the McArthur Foundation and look forward to moving our criminal justice reform efforts forward.”

New Orleans was chosen following a highly-competitive selection process that drew applications from nearly 200 jurisdictions from 45 states. The Safety and Justice Challenge competition supports jurisdictions across the country seeking to create more just and effective local justice systems that improve public safety, save taxpayer money, and yield better outcomes. New Orleans and 19 other jurisdictions will work with expert consultants to develop plans for local justice system improvement. In 2016, as many as 10 of these jurisdictions will receive a second round of funding — between $500,000 to $2 million annually — to implement their plans over a two-year period.

“Nearly 200 diverse jurisdictions responded to our challenge, reflecting nationwide interest in reducing over-incarceration,” said Julia Stasch, president of the MacArthur Foundation. “Each of the sites selected has demonstrated the motivation, collaboration, and commitment needed to make real change in their local justice systems. We hope their local efforts will model effective and safe alternatives to the incarceration status quo for the rest of the country.”

Nationally there has been significant attention paid to the growing number of Americans confined in state and federal prisons, yet local justice systems have not garnered such attention. Since the 1980s, jail populations have significantly increased. According to recent research from the Vera Institute of Justice, nearly 75 percent of the population of both sentenced offenders and pretrial detainees are in jail for nonviolent offenses such as traffic, property, drug, or public order violations.

In 2010, Orleans Parish had the largest jail population per capita in the U.S., more than four times the national average, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Since then, there have been significant reductions: the local jail population is 5.2 per 1,000 and average daily population is consistently under 2,000 as of 2015. In addition, NOPD officers now use summonses when appropriate in place of arrests. However, OPP is still among the largest jails in the country per capita. The support of the MacArthur Foundation will allow the city to continue developing a comprehensive jail management strategic plan — making fewer unnecessary arrests, strengthening a pre-trial services program, working with our criminal justice partners to reduce the time people are in jail awaiting trial and implementing evidence-based practices that facilitate the transition from jail to the community.

“Since I became Sheriff in 2004, the average daily inmate population has been reduced from more than 6,000 inmates to less than 2,000 inmates today,” said Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman. “The governing philosophy of this Sheriff’s Office has been to implement innovative alternatives to incarceration such as our Fast-Track Program to release individuals arrested for minor offenses; our Day Reporting Center for probationers and parolees; and the Southeast Regional Re-Entry Program that reduces recidivism by providing life and job skills for returning citizens.”

Information about the selected jurisdictions, as well as news, research, and events related to the Safety and Justice Challenge, will be published on www.Safetyand-JusticeChallenge.org.

This article originally published in the June 1, 2015 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.