Louisiana Special Session on Crime: Week One
Louisiana’s highly-anticipated special session on crime has been underway for seven days. There are twelve left to go. Here’s where we stand:
Background
On February 8, newly-elected Governor Jeff Landry issued a proclamation for a highly-anticipated special session on crime. The special session runs February 16 to March 6.
The call included twenty-five policy priorities, including:
Implementing Truth in Sentencing
Lowering the age of adult prosecution and imprisonment to seventeen
Making juvenile court records available in an online database even before a youth offender is convicted
Nearly eliminating parole
Making it easier to lose your parole for technical mistakes
Ending the state’s Justice Reinvestment Initiative
23 House Bills and 15 Senate Bills were introduced as a result of the call.
Context
Just two days before the special session started, the Louisiana Legislative Auditor released its first report on the state’s 2017 Justice Reinvestment Initiative (JRI), which is on the chopping block. Among other things, the report showed that JRI:
Saved Louisianans $152.7 million in less than five years
Reduced the number of people who were returned to jail or prison compared to the prior five years
Increased the share of inmates who are participating in rehabilitative programming by 13.1%
Succeeded in focusing prison resources on violent offenders as they took up a larger share of beds in the years following its implementation.
Why It Matters
Special session policies could have disastrous fiscal, safety, and longterm economic effects on the Pelican State without improving public safety.
Louisiana jails and prisons are notoriously dangerous and overcrowded, because of the state’s high rate of incarceration. Meanwhile, 53% of inmates are housed in local facilities — the highest rate in the nation. CJI estimates that the cost of the truth in sentencing provisions in HB9 and HB10 alone would cost local parishes between $121,000 and $151,000 per inmate. In addition to the cost to local governments, if applied to every inmate released in 2022 for example, these two bills would cost the state budget over $1 billion.
Further overcrowding will create dangerous work environments for corrections officers and lead to more difficulty recruiting and retaining guards for both jails and prisons. In a 2023 profile, one female Louisiana corrections officer reported being responsible for 158 men at a time. When Wisconsin implemented truth in sentencing the state saw a 40% rise in incarceration. When Georgia did the same, violence in prisons rose.
Reducing access to rehabilitative programming and removing incentives to improve oneself while behind bars will likely have a negative impact on recidivism and is counter to what Louisiana voters say they want. In a poll last year, 70% of respondents in the state said “It does not matter whether a person convicted of a nonviolent crime serves a longer sentence. What matters most is that when they complete their time, they are less likely to reoffend.” Meanwhile, a Council on Criminal Justice report found that long sentences have at best a neutral effect on recidivism, and sometimes appear to contribute to an increase in repeat crime.
What’s Happening Now
The Louisiana legislature is moving quickly to achieve Governor Landry’s goals.
Bill statuses are changing by the minute. The best place to keep up today, is on the Louisiana House live stream.
Seven bills are on the agenda for final passage in the house today, including HB 9 and HB 10.
The Senate has gone home for now. Senators plan to return to session Sunday to consider the bills the House passes today.
What You Can Do
The special session will continue to move quickly, but advocacy is always worthwhile.
Louisianans can find their Senator on the state website by entering their home address and reach out to make their voice heard by phone or email.
People outside Louisiana can join the conversation on social media, by using the #lalege hashtag on X (formerly Twitter). To elevate a chorus of voices, consider retweeting our JAN account, which is sharing excerpts from this email today. We’re also on Instagram.
Meet the Louisiana Team
Noah Bein
Noah is an astute public policy pro whose approach is both pragmatic and principled. Prior to JAN, Noah led legislative campaigns at the Pew Charitable Trusts, securing bipartisan youth justice reforms in Utah, Kansas, and elsewhere.
Reach out: noah@justiceactionnetwork.org
Diana Rademacher
Diana is a skilled government affairs strategist and award-winning communicator. She previously served as Policy Director for Americans for Prosperity where she helped pass the nation’s first Clean Slate Act to include felonies, designed a $20 million co-response grant program, and led a robust coalition for pretrial reform.
Reach out: diana@justiceactionnetwork.org