N.O. receives $1.5M to reduce the city’s prison population
18th April 2016 · 0 Comments
By Prescotte Stokes, III
Contributing Writer
The City of New Orleans has received a $1.5 million grant to help implement reforms to safely reduce the city’s jail population. Mayor Mitch Landrieu made the announcement on Wednesday (April 13) through a press release stating that the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation selected New Orleans as one of the 11 jurisdictions across the country to receive the funding.
The foundation awarded nearly $25 million in total supporting ambitious plans to make local justice systems more fair and effective when it comes to dealing with racial and ethnic disparities in the system.
Mayor Landrieu says that before Hurricane Katrina ravaged the city in 2005 the jail population was about 7,000 inmates. When he took office in 2010 New Orleans had around 3,400 inmates making it the largest jail population per capita in the U.S. according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. That was four times higher than the national average.
Since then the number has dropped to just under 1,600 inmates as part of the daily jail population. Over that time period, New Orleans Police Department Officers have been using summonses when appropriate in the place of arrest. But, despite the effort, the Orleans Justice Center still remains among the largest jails per capita in the country.
Landrieu says with the MacArthur foundations help the city can implement strategies cut down on the misuse and overuse of jails.
“We have done major work since Katrina to reduce the local jail capacity even further to 1,600, but we have more work to accomplish,” said Landrieu.
The grant is part of a $75 million effort by the foundation dubbed the Safety and Justice Challenge. It was launched in February 2015 by the MacArthur foundation to address the issues and create a fairer local justice system by focusing on reforms. The selected cities will be provided technical assistance and counseling for their proposed plans from several of the nation’s leading criminal justice organizations. The challenge aims to reduce over incarceration by establishing a network of jurisdictions to model other local criminal systems after around the country.
Mayor Landrieu says the city laid out their plan in phases starting with a tracking and accountability mechanism focused on disparities. They want to engage with the community to come up with solutions for disparity in the system. Back in May 2015 the city competed in a competitive selection process where applications came from almost 200 jurisdictions from 45 states and territories.
New Orleans succeeded and was chosen by the foundation to receive a $150,000 grant to begin the first phase of the plan.
Julia Stasch, president of the MacArthur Foundation said that she’s confident the jurisdictions participating have solid plans that will show change can happen.
“The thoughtful plans and demonstrable political will give us confidence that these jurisdictions will show that change is possible,” said Stasch. “Even the most intractable justice-related challenges in cities, countries and states across the country.”
Receiving the $1.5 million grant will help the city move into phase two of the plan, which involves a partnership between the Mayor’s Office and the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office in collaboration with Orleans Parish Probation and Parole, NOPD, District Attorney’s Office, Public Defenders, Criminal District and Municipal Court and community stakeholders. The city will implement Implicit Bias Trainings where decision makers in the criminal justice system can openly discuss biases in the criminal justice system.
Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin Gusman stated in the press release that city government agencies should work together to focus on safely diverting individuals with mental health and addiction treatments from jail facilities.
“As Sheriff I have closed jail facilities and reduced the inmate population in our city substantially,” said Gusman. “I am pleased to join with our criminal justice partners to improve outcomes in the justice system in New Orleans.”
All of the stakeholders in the city’s plan have developed a third phase in the plan that will focus on risk-based decision making. It will offer alternatives to arrest for people with mental health and substance abuse problems. They will also instruct officers to focus less on an individual’s past criminal records when making decisions about putting someone in detention for a low level offense.
The news of the plan came just two days before Louisiana legislators were set to vote on House Bill 263. The bill could aid the efforts of the third phase of the city’s plan by helping reduce the rate of incarceration if state legislators vote down the bill. HB 263 would prevent anyone with more than one felony conviction from receiving public benefits, making it far more likely that they will end up back in jail or prison. The passage of that bill would affect the way officers deal with state’s mentally ill residents during arrest.
In an email statement, Cashauna Hill, executive director of the Greater New Orleans Fair Housing Action Center, said that the bill could undo progress that the city is making.
“The Housing Authority just passed a new policy to reunite people with criminal records with their families,” said Hill. “We’re working hard to ensure that people with mental illness receive treatment rather than being warehoused in our jail.”
The city predicts that the plan will safely reduce jail usage by 27 percent and cut down racial and ethnic disparities over the next three years of implementation.
This article originally published in the April 18, 2016 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.
