Report: Louisiana tops charts for pre-trial incarceration

By Meghan Holmes
Contributing Writer

A new report from the ACLU of Louisiana, “Justice Can’t Wait,” examines Louisiana’s pre-trial detention system. Using data from thousands of jail records and interviews with Louisianans who spent time in jail before trial, the report finds that the state incarcerates more people before trial than any other state on record since 1970, when record-keeping began, and at a rate three times the national average.

Black Louisianans are disproportionately impacted by pretrial detention, spending 36 percent more time in jail before trial on average, and being twice as likely to be jailed than white Louisianans. Black men and boys aged 15-24 were more than five times more likely to be jailed following arrest than white men and boys of the same age.

“The effects of jail, and its disproportionate effects on Black Louisianans, women, people with chemical dependency, and poor people, cannot be overstated. Even if charges are eventually dropped, jail time can mean a lost job, lost income, eviction, loss of relationships, and even loss of child custody. The consequences of time in jail are so dire that people jailed pretrial are more likely to plead guilty, even when they are actually innocent, just so they can be released,” the report states.

Pretrial detainees spent an average of five and a half months behind bars before trial, with 57 percent of them being non-violent offenders. Drug possession was the most common charge, and bail was $24,000 on average. Over the last four years, Louisiana’s rate of pretrial incarceration has risen 10.3 percent.

“These findings are a wake-up call that even as Louisiana has worked to reduce its prison population, a devastating epidemic of pretrial incarceration has risen up in its wake,” Alanah Odoms Hebert, ACLU of Louisiana executive director, said in a news release accompanying the report.

The report provides state and local legislative policy recommendations, including reducing the number of arrests, reforming bail, reducing time to charge and arraignment, and better documenting prosecutors’ decisions during the pretrial process. Louisiana spends nearly $300,000,000 annually to pay for its population of pre-trial detainees.

“The system threatens our shared values and is bleeding taxpayer money. Most people languishing in parish jails are not there because they are guilty of a crime, but because they are poor and cannot afford bail money,” the report states.

“Justice Can’t Wait” also includes excerpts from interviews with people who were incarcerated before trial, many of whom were eventually found innocent but could not afford bail money. In the time between their arrest and eventual release, they lost businesses, homes and vehicles.

“Louisianans know firsthand the significant cost savings that come with reducing incarceration. In the first two years following the state’s passage of Justice Reinvestment Initiative legislation in 2017, Louisiana reduced its prison population by thousands, saving taxpayers nearly $30 million. Shrinking the state’s massive pretrial jail population would come with its own significant savings,” the report says.

The ACLU is working with state legislators to reduce Louisiana’s pretrial population.

Representative Ted James, a Baton Rouge Democrat, introduced a bill to set the maximum time between an arrest and filing of a charge in misdemeanor and most felony charges at five days. Failure to file a charge would result in the suspect’s release. Another James bill would require parish jails to collect standard data on their pretrial jail populations and submit quarterly reports, one of the ACLU’s policy recommendations in the new report.

The Louisiana District Attorneys Association and the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association did not immediately respond to requests for comment on the day of the report’s release.

This article originally published in the March 23, 2020 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.