Experts address La.’s prison population
1st July 2019 · 0 Comments
By Ryan Whirty
Contributing Writer
Cresting a wave of bipartisan unity and support, advocates of criminal justice reform in Louisiana gathered in New Orleans on June 21 for a wide-ranging panel discussion focused on furthering the gradually emptying of the state’s overcrowded jails and prisons.
The talk, which was hosted by the ACLU of Louisiana and the Urban Institute, zeroed in on the themes of lowering the mass incarceration rate for non-violent criminals and reducing the rate of recidivism inherent in a criminal-justice system that stresses punishment over rehabilitation.
The panel, titled “Toward a Shared Vision of Smart Justice in Louisiana,” drew together advocates and activists from across the political spectrum and from an array of government and non-profit organizations that used the 2017 adoption by the state legislature 10 bills that had been proposed by Gov. John Bel Edwards at the conclusion of his Justice Reform Task Force.
The legislation, collectively called the Justice Reinvestment initiatives, has made inroads in reducing the state’s prison population; although Louisiana still has the highest incarceration rate in the country, reports have shown that between 2016 and 2018, the state’s prison population has dropped by around seven percent.
Advocates say that lowering the number of incarcerated individuals – especially those guilty of non-violent crimes – has correspondingly lowered state spending on the prison system, freeing up those funds for other programs and departments, including those aimed at rehabilitating criminals and preventing crime from even happening.
Such fiscal benefits have appealed to many conservatives concerned about excess, wasted spending of taxpayer money on a prison system that is inefficient and imprisoning lower-level criminals who would be better served by rehabilitation and preparation for their release instead of simple punishment.
According to Alanah Odums Hebert, executive director of the ACLU of Louisiana, the state has saved $12.2 million, with roughly $8 million of that being reinvested into community programs.
“Two years ago Louisiana took a huge first step to end mass incarceration in Louisiana with bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation, thanks to a broad coalition of formerly incarcerated people, crime survivors, law enforcement officials, business leaders and members of the faith community,” Hebert said after the June 21 panel.
Hebert said that Louisiana’s criminal-justice reform initiatives have received overwhelming support from both sides of the political aisle – she said 70 percent of all Louisianans and about 60 percent of Republicans in the state back the efforts.
Ronal Serpas, former superintendent of the New Orleans Police Department, also participated in the recent panel discussion. In addition to his time leading the NOPD, Serpas was named the executive director of Law Enforcement Leaders to Reduce Crime and Incarceration and currently serves as a professor in Loyola University of New Orleans’ Department of Criminology and Justice.
Serpas noted that Louisiana saw a 19-percent reduction of the state’s crime rate between 2007 and 2017, adding that over that same period of time, Louisiana’s incarceration rate correspondingly dropped by 17 percent.
“Louisiana has joined the nationwide movement to pass sensible criminal justice reforms, along with many states and, recently, the federal government,” Serpas said. “These deliberate and reasoned reforms deserve credit for the impacts they have already had and will have in the future. Nationally, data have demonstrated that these reforms successfully hold offenders accountable, allow police and prosecutors to focus on violent criminals, and provide effective programs for successful reentry.”
Another participant in the panel discussion, United Way of Southeast Louisiana President and CEO Michael Williamson, said his organization has taken a particular interest in the back end of the criminal justice system – the release of former prisoners and their reintegration into the community.
“They’re coming home, they might become your neighbor,” Williamson said. “Would we rather make them more likely to return to prison, which isn’t solving the crime issue in neighborhoods, or provide them help in getting acclimated, with finding employment and making them a model for others as a productive member of the community?”
He added that the process should begin while prisoners are incarcerated by giving them a chance to earn their GEDs, providing extensive reading materials and library services, and help in overcoming addictions.
With that preparation in hand, prisoners can transition into post-release services such as job training, comprehensive health care and support services, and access to adequate housing. By doing that, Williamson said, the release not only helps make the community safer, but by obtaining and maintaining steady employment, they together can infuse hundreds of millions of dollars into local economies.
To do its part and establish a model for such success stories, Williamson said, the United Way of Southeast Louisiana is in the process of providing multi-faceted, post-release assistance to 60 former convicts. By providing such services, as well as conducting in-depth research and data collection to support the United Way’s push toward implementing such programs on a wider scale, the organization hopes to provide a way forward.
“If people can set aside their perceptions [of convicts], we can show, with informed research, that what we’re currently doing isn’t working,” he said.
Reforms, he added, “can result in a far better investment of our tax dollars than our current criminal justice system.”
For her part, Hebert said that even though progress has been made toward advocates’ goals of reducing prison population and spending, more needs to be done, especially after many other states – including several other Southern ones – continue to make such changes.
“[W]e can’t stop here,” she said. “We still lock up more people than every single one of our southern neighbors. And correctional spending still accounts for a sizable portion of the general fund budget.”
To that end, ACLU-Louisiana in April released the Blueprint for Smart Justice Louisiana, which proposes a series of further reforms that, if adopted by the state, according to the ACLU, could slash the number of people incarcerated in Louisiana by half by 2025. According to the proposals, the measures could also save state taxpayers more than $800 million, which, the ACLU says, could then be reinvested into programs creating safer, stronger communities across the state.
The Blueprint for Smart Justice Louisiana is part of the national ACLU’s Smart Justice 50-State Blueprints project, which is co-sponsored by the Urban Institute and aimed at producing a comprehensive, state-by-state analysis of each state’s criminal justice system and how those systems can be reformed, streamlined and reduced.
Hebert said the measures included in the Blueprint for Smart Justice Louisiana “highlight[s] recommendations that focus on reducing admissions to prison as well as reducing time served. These reforms include sentencing reform, parole reform and instituting alternatives to incarceration.”
The proposed measures also target the stark racial disparities in the prison system, as well as breaking down a criminal justice process that favors the wealthy and unfairly punishes the poor, racial minorities and other marginalized populations.
“Bottom line,” she added, “Louisiana is poised to continue the march toward a criminal justice system that puts people before prisons and makes our communities stronger and safer. Achieving this ambitious goal will take all of us: conservatives and community organizers, beat cops and business leaders and most importantly, the formerly incarcerated people who have been most impacted by this broken system.”
Other participants in the June 21 event included Udi Ofer, Deputy National Political Director of the ACLU and director of the ACLU’s Campaign for Smart Justice; Leah Sakala of the Urban Institute; Daniel Erspamer, CEO of the Pelican Institute, a non-profit research and education organization focusing on public policy; John Kay, director of the Louisiana division of the Americans for Prosperity; a national conservative/libertarian think tank; Scott Peyton, Right on Crime Louisiana State director; and Stephanie Riegel, editor of the Baton Rouge Business Report.
In addition to the ACLU and Urban Institute, the June 21 discussion was sponsored by Right on Crime, The Pelican Institute, Committee on 100, Vera Institute of Justice, and Americans for Prosperity. It was held at the Homewood Suites in the French Quarter.
This article originally published in the July 1, 2019 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
