Gusman responds to City Council resolution on Phase III construction

2nd September 2014   ·   0 Comments

By Mason Harrison
Contributing Writer

Councilmember Susan Guidry, and fellow members of the New Orleans City Council, continue to weigh in on the debate over the size and scope of the new prison planned for Orleans Parish. Guidry, who chairs the council’s committee on criminal justice, authored a resolution Aug. 21 calling on Sheriff Marlin Gusman to “expeditiously remove…all Pla­que­mines Parish prisoners and Louisiana Department of Cor­rections—sentenced inmates” from current facilities at Orleans Parish Prison. Currently, the prison houses 66 Plaquemines Parish inmates.

The six-page resolution, passed unanimously by the council, provides exceptions for prisoners “serving in work-release, community service, or re-entry programs” and is the latest attempt by the city’s legislative branch to corral Gusman’s plans for facilities at the prison into procedures more in line with the council’s vision for the future of criminal justice operations in New Orleans.

The resolution also calls on Gusman to forgo construction of a so-called Phase III facility designed to house close to 400 additional inmates from special populations with the option to add an extra 380 beds for prisoners from the ranks of the general population. Those plans have come under fire from prison reform advocates who believe shrinking the size of the jail is crucial to altering the conditions at the prison and for easing incarceration levels, while buttressing pre-trial services and other diversion programs.

“The City has introduced policies and programs that have safely and significantly reduced our local pretrial population,” according to a statement from Guidry’s office released after passage of the resolution. “The size of the new jail will undoubtedly be a driving factor in both the number of inmates being housed in the future, as well as our ability to house them in safe and humane conditions, and we are unconvinced that there is a need for additional bed capacity beyond the Phase II facility.”

The Phase II project is the 1,400-bed facility now under construction to replace the prison’s aging and unsafe infrastructure and has been a source of contention as legal and political observers debate the appropriate capacity for the new facility. The resolution urges Gusman to retrofit the Phase II building to house inmates with substance abuse and mental health needs in lieu of constructing a $6 million Phase III structure over concerns that Gusman has not laid out appropriate plans to staff an additional building and because the price tag for the new facility is projected to exceed the Phase II retrofitting costs.

Gusman, however, blasted the council’s resolution as lacking “substance and detail” and cited previous attempts by his office to address the housing of inmates with mental and substance abuse needs. “The City Council missed the opportunity more than a year ago,” according to a statement, “when the Sheriff’s Office offered a proposal to reconfigure the fourth floor of the inmate housing building to accommodate acute mental health inmates when it was feasible to do so.” Gusman calls a decision by the mayor’s office to reject the proposal and a move by the City Council to remain “silent on the matter,” and other proposals, problematic.

“It is the city’s legal responsibility to provide the Sheriff with a sufficient jail, yet the city has shirked its legal obligation, particularly after Hurricane Katrina when the city was awarded millions of dollars that could have gone toward replacing city-owned jail facilities,” Gusman contends, adding, that “[a]lthough [it is] not the legal responsibility of the Sheriff’s Office, but in the interest of public safety, the Sheriff’s Office since Hurricane Katrina has invested its FEMA funds in buildings that will accommodate inmates and several jail support functions.” Gusman argues that the time for city officials to meet their statutory obligations is overdue. “Habitually saying “no,” is not a sustainable policy position and is a serious threat to public safety,” the sheriff contends.

But while the city’s elected officials debate the size of the new prison facilities, a local nonprofit group is calling on government leaders to go further in ensuring the new version of Orleans Parish Prison has enough capacity to house would-be inmates.

“A smaller jail will not change the need to house pretrial inmates,” states a report from the Metropolitan Crime Commission.

“A lack of jail space will compel the City of New Orleans to pay out of parish facilities to hold pretrial inmates and incur the additional cost of transporting inmates for court appearances. Reduced local jail capacity will delay case processing which will further increase the expense of housing pretrial inmates who spend more time in custody. Inadequate jail space could also force the release of…inmates due to overcrowding and undermine how the criminal justice system provides for community safety.”

The crime commission backs the construction of a Phase III facility bringing the total number of beds at the parish prison to 2,500. “The number of beds is not the same as the number of possible inmates. There need to be 10 percent to 20 percent more beds than inmates due to fluctuations in the numbers of inmates and separation of different classification of inmates. Using these parameters, a jail with approximately 2,300 to 2,500 beds is needed to house the average inmate population in the first six months of 2014.”

But most observers reject the crime commission’s proposal and are calling for a smaller jail to reduce the footprint of the city’s criminal justice system. Gusman, in his rejection of the City Council’s resolution, suggested that all stakeholders can at least agree on the substance of the debate surrounding the need to make changes at the prison and to accommodate DOC inmates. “

The only positive aspect of the City Council’s resolution,” Gusman states, “is the recognition that the jail facility should continue to house DOC inmates who are performing transitional work or community service, or who are in re-entry programs.”

This article originally published in the September 1, 2014 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.