Frequently at odds over the budget and raising taxes, Gov. John Bel Edwards and the Louisiana Association of Business and Industry have found at least one issue to work together on for the betterment of Louisiana, says Business Report Editor Stephanie Riegel.
“The issue is the state’s criminal justice system. It’s broken and needs fixing,” she writes in her latest column. “Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the nation—816 per 100,000 residents—yet our crime rates continue to climb. We spend as much on incarceration—roughly $700 million a year—as we do on higher education. And yet, our recidivism rate is among the worst in the nation.”
Louisiana is locking up two and three times as many nonviolent offenders as are our fellow Southern states, Riegel notes, but our crime rates are equal to theirs—or higher in some cases.
“In other words, there is a fundamental disconnect between how our cash-strapped state is spending its limited resources in the criminal justice arena and the results we’re getting for it,” she writes. “We’re wasting money and lives by locking up people who don’t really need to be behind bars, then failing to give them the mental health treatment, basic life skills training or job counseling they need to be productive members of society.”
What’s more, Riegel says, dangerous offenders are periodically released from prison because there’s not enough room to house them.
To address Louisiana’s incarceration problem, Edwards and the state created the Louisiana Justice Reinvestment Task Force to come up with specific recommendations to bring to the Legislature in early 2017. The panel includes a cross section of representatives who are using a data-driven approach to study what’s working in other states and what might work in Louisiana.
“You might expect a Democratic administration to take on an issue like this. What makes this effort particularly noteworthy is that LABI and other business groups are not only supporting it, but advocating for it,” Riegel writes. “They have come to understand that changing the way we spend our criminal justice dollars—reinvesting in the system in new and different ways—saves money and improves the ROI and the quality of life for everyone in the state.”
To that end, LABI is sponsoring a Criminal Justice Reform Summit from 8 a.m. to noon on Thursday at Crowne Plaza to raise awareness of the issue, the task force’s work, and the importance of supporting this effort when bills go before the Legislature next spring, says Riegel, who’s moderating one of the summit’s panels.
“Getting such measures passed, whatever form they ultimately take, won’t be easy,” she says. “Lawmakers will have a lot on their plate, and they’ll face pressure from special interest groups like sheriffs—who house a lot of state prisoners in their local jails and therefore have a financial incentive to maintain the status quo—and tea party types, who will accuse moderates and Democrats of being soft on crime.”
Read the full column. Register and get more information about the Criminal Justice Reform Summit. Send your comments to editors@businessreport.com.
