Happy New Year Louisiana! Goals for the new administration
11th January 2016 · 0 Comments
By Marjorie R. Esman
Guest Columnist
For the last couple of years in the month of January, we’ve used this column to offer our list of Resolutions Louisiana Can Live With. But as Governor John Bel Edwards settles into office, we’d like to offer instead a list of long-term goals we’d like to see in Louisiana. Gov. Edwards, we hope to work with you to bring Louisiana forward.
Criminal Justice Reform: End three-strikes, enhance parole opportunities
Criminal justice reform is finally more than just conversation, but for the thousands of non-violent offenders serving long sentences up to and including life because of three-strikes laws, reform can’t happen fast enough. Groups like The Sentencing Project, an advocacy group for sentencing reform, say laws like three-strikes are largely responsible for prison overcrowding. “Changes in sentencing law and policy, not increases in crime rates, explain most of the six-fold increase in the national prison population.” In Louisiana, three-strikes laws and mandatory minimum sentences are central to our standing as the world’s incarceration leader.
Originally meant to punish repeat violent offenders, now the list of offenses under three-strikes has expanded to include many minor and non-violent crimes like trespassing and shoplifting. In Louisiana there are inmates serving life sentences without a chance of parole for shoplifting, convicted under three-strikes law. In our 2013 report “Smart Reform is Possible,” the ACLU highlighted cases from Louisiana in which someone is serving life without parole for acting as a go-between in the sale of $10 of marijuana to an undercover officer, shoplifting three belts from a department store, slashing tires in the lot of a used car dealer, possession of stolen wrenches, among others. These offenses, while deserving of punishment, simply should not send someone to prison for life.
Abolishing three-strike laws is not only the ethical and humane thing to do, but it’s also fiscally responsible, especially considering Louisiana’s budget problems. Reform would significantly reduce Louisiana’s prison population, help unclog our courts and save the state potentially tens of millions of dollars annually. We encourage Governor Edwards to support abolishing three-strike laws and replace them with common sense legislation that offers alternative sentencing to jail time for non-violent offenders.
If three-strike laws filled our jails, lack of parole opportunities have kept them filled. Not only does Louisiana lock up more people than anywhere else, we lock them up longer—four times the national average. Life without parole in Louisiana has created a population of ailing and elderly prisoners, although studies show that after age 55, there’s essentially no chance of recidivism. The cost for caring for an elderly or ailing inmate costs taxpayers about $80,000 per year on average. Almost 4,800 people are serving life sentences without parole in Louisiana. The state could realize a savings of almost $80 million annually by releasing non-violent inmates who can demonstrate to a parole board that they are not dangers to society. Giving someone an opportunity to prove their rehabilitation hurts no one, because if there is doubt about the public safety risk, parole won’t be granted. But it simply makes no sense to continue to lock up people who could become taxpayers once again and contribute back to society.. We urge Louisiana’s new governor to rethink the current parole system and to support humane, reform legislation that offers non-violent offenders the opportunity for release and a chance to rebuild their lives.
End LGBT discrimination and keep religion out of the public arena
Last year, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that same-sex couples have right under the Equal Protection and Due Process clauses to marry the person of their choosing. Still, in critical life areas like employment, housing, parenting, and access to public accommodations, members of the LGBT community lack basic protections from discrimination in most of Louisiana. Louisiana is one of many states that lack state-wide laws protecting gay workers. The new administration needs to support policies that lead to full protection from discrimination for the LGBT community, including protection against discrimination using religion as a defense. The Supreme Court’s ruling makes clear that clergy and religious organizations are not obliged to perform same-sex marriages; but people and businesses that serve the public shouldn’t be allowed to discriminate against someone because of their sexual orientation.
In this as in other areas, we must ensure that religion is kept out of the public sphere, including our schools and government offices. Teachers, government workers and anyone working in the public sector do not have the right to impose their religious beliefs on others or single out certain religions or practices as bad or undesirable. It’s essential to protect the religious freedom of everyone in this country, which means that no one may impose their religion on others. Gov. Edwards, we urge you to use your office to ensure that no government employee uses their religion as a way to withhold services from someone else, or imposes their religious beliefs on anyone.
Stop treating poverty as a crime.
In Louisiana as across the U.S., thousands are locked up because they can’t meet bail or pay a fine, while those who can afford to pay go free In August of last year the ACLU of Louisiana published a report, “Louisiana’s Debtors Prisons: An Appeal to Justice.” In it we shed light on the “pay or stay” policies at work in many Louisiana courtrooms, in which someone who lacks the money for a fine or court-ordered fee is sent to jail. You can read the full report online at www.laaclu.org.
In addition to “pay or stay” sentences, inability to post bail keeps poor people incarcerated. The New Orleans Metropolitan Crime Commission reported in August of 2014 that roughly 80 percent of the more than 2,000 people held in Orleans Parish Prison hadn’t been convicted of any crime but were there awaiting trial, because they couldn’t post bail. Yet if a judge sets a bail or bond amount, the judge is declaring that the person isn’t a danger to the community. After all, a wealthier person who committed the same offense would post the money and be released. Gov. Edwards, please support reforms to our bail system so that poor people don’t languish in jail, before they’ve been convicted of anything, simply for lack of resources.
With every new administration comes an opportunity to reflect on what can be done better. Gov. Edwards faces enormous challenges, and the chance to reshape Louisiana for the better. These are some suggestions for how he can help us become a better state.
Happy New Year, Louisiana!
This article originally published in the January 11, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
