From Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections:
A new report from the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement found that the state has saved over $150 million because of a robust package of criminal justice measures passed by the legislature in 2017. The savings are tied to a roughly 10,000-person reduction in the state’s prison population between 2021 and 2016.
The 2017 Justice Reinvestment legislative package made several sentencing reforms to nonviolent offenses, reduced mandatory minimum sentences under the state’s habitual offender law, and expanded parole eligibility, among many other changes.
Prior to these reforms, DOC Secretary James LeBlanc said that the state’s high rate of incarceration was not having the desired impact on public safety. “We were locking up twice as many people [as the rest of the country]” LeBlanc said. “And all you had to do was look at the crime stats. And where we were ranked in crime stats, and we were in the top ten in every crime category there was. And so, obviously locking up and throwing away the key was not what we were trying to accomplish in this state with reform.”
“The numbers are reflecting that we’re doing the right thing and heading in the right direction,” LeBlanc said.
Read the full report here.
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