New Orleans lawmaker grills Landry parole board nominee about prisoner labor comments
3rd June 2024 · 0 Comments
By Julie O’Donoghue
Contributing Writer
(lailluminator.com) — Back in 2017, Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator was one of the first elected officials to criticize former Gov. John Bel Edwards’ criminal justice overhaul that shortened prison sentences, particularly for people convicted of drug offenses and other nonviolent crimes.
At the time, the Republican law enforcement leader expressed not just concerns about the impact on public safety, but also on the financial bottom line of his office. He wasn’t only worried about the so-called “bad” prisoners who might commit more crimes if freed earlier. He also objected to early release of the “good ones” as well.
“In addition to the bad ones – in addition to them – they are releasing some good ones that we use every day to wash cares, to change the oil in our cars, to cook in the kitchen – to do all that where we save money,” Prator told Shreveport-area reporters at a press conference.
He characterized the good prisoners as “the ones you can work. That’s the one that you can have pick up trash or work the police programs. But guess what? Those are the ones that they are releasing.”
His comments appalled civil liberties and criminal justice advocates.
“Jails are not supposed to incarcerate people just because they need work done – that is slavery,” Majorie Esman, former executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, said back in 2017.
Now, Gov. Jeff Landry has picked Prator, who retired from the sheriff’s office earlier this year, to serve on the Louisiana Board of Pardons and Committee on Parole. In that job, he will decide if and when hundreds of incarcerated people get out of prison over the next four years.
With his new job in mind, Prator’s old comments about “good” prisoners still don’t sit well with state Sen. Gary Carter, D-New Orleans.
“There are many of us who share the concern that the prison industrial complex is taking advantage of certain prisoners, that they are making a profit off of them, that they are having them wash their cars, change their oil, cook in their kitchens, where they can save money,” Carter told Prator during a legislative meeting this week.
Carter sits on the Louisiana Senate and Governmental Affairs Committee tasked with vetting Landry’s nominees, including Prator, for government posts. The committee is expected to forward their list of recommendations for appointments next week to the full Senate, who must vote to confirm the governor’s nominees before they can take those jobs permanently.
“They’ve been reports of prisoners being contracted with employers where they’re making minimum wage. But yet the prisoners are only making pennies on the dollar, and there’s a great benefit to the criminal justice system,” Carter told Prator this week. “What do you say to address those concerns of people that you look at these prisoners as a profit source?”
Prator said he felt like comments at the press conference years ago were taken out of context.
“It was referring to the good ones meaning the good-behaved. … It sounds like they’re being used for jobs … and we’re taking advantage of them,” Prator told Carter. “They were sentenced by a judge to hard labor, and therefore they were washing cars, in our particular correctional center, because they volunteered to go do that just because they wanted to get out and do that.”
“I’m not saying that was a good person or a bad person,” Prator said. “I’m saying that was a good prisoner versus a bad prisoner, which is those that possibly shot somebody, killed somebody.”
Carter pushed back on the notion that Prator was misunderstood.
“I listened to the press conference. I don’t believe [your words] were taken out of context,” the senator said.
In 2017, Prator’s “good” prisoner comments highlighted a one-of-its-kind dynamic about Louisiana’s criminal justice system. Many sheriffs help pay for their regular law enforcement staff and operations by housing and working state prisoners, often from other parts of the state.
More than half of Louisiana’s state prison population is housed in parish jails. Based on state corrections department data as of March 31, that would place more than 14,000 incarcerated people at control of local sheriffs.
In every other state besides California, the prison population housed in local jails is under five percent.
Some sheriffs have grown so dependent on the revenue state prisoners produce, they would have budget troubles without them. Back in 2017, Prator said he housed state prisoners because it was “necessary to keep the lights on.”
At the time, Caddo Correctional Center was housing 330 male offenders and 25 female offenders for the state. It also ran a work release program with 57 inmates.
While housed in jails, state prisoners work for free. Inmates pick up trash from roadsides, cook and clean at the local jail or other government facilities.
In work release programs, inmates take jobs with private businesses such as restaurants, farms and agricultural operations. They are paid, but sheriffs who house them are allowed to garnish a good chunk of their wages.
Last week, Prator told Carter he had ended the Caddo Parish Correctional Center’s work release program in the years after he made those initial comments in 2017. But he did not explain why it was terminated and generally defended the concept.
“We had a work release center – as do many local jails – and they’re very profitable, and many people say that they’re good for the local prisoners and the prisoners leave with money,” Prator said at the legislative hearing.
“It all depends on how you want to paint the picture. You can paint it as giving them a chance to pay child support, to come out with a paycheck, to have learned a skill, to go to work somewhere,” he said.
“Or you can look at it from the lens that it’s profiteering. That’s my concern,” Carter responded.
In spite of Carter’s objections, Prator’s confirmation is likely to go through the Senate easily. He has more than 50 years of experience in law enforcement, including nine years as Shreveport’s police chief and 24 years as the Caddo Parish sheriff.
Prator’s own Democratic senator, Sam Jenkins of Shreveport, also supports his nomination to the parole board.
“I’m very happy to have my former sheriff nominated,” said Jenkins, who also sits on the Senate committee that vets the governor’s appointees. “I feel confident in saying that I think you’re a fair-minded individual who wants to do the right thing.”
Prator also said, in his short time on the parole board this year, that he has not always been a “no” vote on parole.
“There are people that are incarcerated that deserve a second chance,” he said during his confirmation hearing. “Thank goodness that I’ve had a second chance in many things I’ve done, and a third chance.”
This article originally published in the June 3, 2024 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
