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Mass Incarceration
Civic Academy
Crime and Punishment in Louisiana
Statewide Issues Conference
Saturday, February 15, 2014
Louisiana - Prison Capital of the World
• LA incarcerates more people per capita than any
other place on the planet.
• 1 in 55 Louisiana adults is in the prison system
(nearly double the national avg.)
• LA spends less on local inmates than any other
state.
• LA leads the nation in the percentage of its
prisoners serving life without parole.
• More than 300 people serving life without parole
in LA have never been convicted of a violent
crime.
The “war on drugs” and its federal incentives
have boosted the drug arrests.
Today there are more African-Americans under correctional
control than there were slaves in 1850 (just prior to the Civil War).
• Nearly 2/3’s of LA’s
prisoners are nonviolent
offenders – the national
avg. is less than half.
53% of LA’s inmates are in local prisons – the national
avg. is 5%
Local vs. State Facility
Local Jails
• $24.39/day per prisoner
DOC State Facilities
• $55.00/day avg.
• Angola – $63.15 per diem
•
•
non-violent offenders
• Do not work
violent offenders/longer
sentences
• Every offender works
• No rehabilitation
• Minimal rehab offered
• No resources for job
training
• Some job training available
LA has the harshest sentencing
Laws in the United States
“
”
How Did We Get This Way?
• In the early 1900’s, Louisiana was under a
federal court order to reduce overcrowding.
The state incentivized the building of private
prisons.
• Since most of the prison entrepreneurs were
rural sheriffs, they began to fill up local jails
with inmates. Sheriffs were given financial
incentives for housing inmates and it created
jobs for the locals.
Problems With This Solution
• For the local prisons to make a profit, their
beds must be full. Local sheriffs barter for
prisoners from overcrowded jails in larger
cities.
• Criminal sentences must remain stiff to keep
the quota of inmates in each jail.
With Mass Incarceration……
• The more often the sanction of imprisonment is
employed, the less it deters.
• Social factors known to contribute to criminality
increase with high rates of imprisonment.
• The more $$ we spend on locking up people, the
less money there is to fund the things that might
keep people out of jail in the first place.
(rehabilitation, after-school programs, schools,
recreation programs, etc)
• As more and more people are incarcerated,
the general conditions of the community
diminish.
• For many parents in jail, the spouse becomes
financially dependent on the state system.
• Children of incarcerated parents are more
likely to become truant, depressed, transient,
and school drop-outs.
• Prison becomes for some…..a rite of passage,
an expected fate.
The Avg. ed. level of La Inmate =
7th grade
• 15,000 inmates are released each year.
• 11,000 are released from local jails.
• 4,000 are released from state facilities.
Possibilities for Change….
• Provide alternatives to incarceration.
• Reduce length of sentences
• Treat drug addiction as a public health
problem
• Provide ed. programs/job skills training/
rehabilitation programs to inmates to reduce
recidivism
• Build PEOPLE, not prisons.