State’s Prison Population Shrinks

By Susan Buchanan

On November 1 of last year, inmates were released from facilities across Louisiana in a one-time exodus. Ten criminal justice measures, signed by Governor John Bel Edwards in June of last year, helped nonviolent, non-sex offenders win early discharges. Since then, the state’s prison population has fallen to a 20-year low. But observers say services will need to expand to keep former prisoners free.

To date, 434 of the 1,952 inmates released on November 1 have been rearrested, Ken Pastorick, spokesman for the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said last week. “That amounts to just above 22 percent but that isn’t the state’s recidivism rate,” he said. Until they’re convicted, former inmates aren’t considered part of the recidivism rate under his agency’s definition. Former inmates who have had their probations revoked for violations would be counted as recidivists, but not those who’ve been detained and are awaiting adjudication.

While it may be months before the state has a good handle on recidivism in the first year of reforms, the number is likely to be well below 22 percent, Pastorick said.

A national study, done by Bureau of Justice Statistics researchers and released in May, found that 44 percent of freed prisoners in thirty U.S. states were arrested in the first year after they left prison. The bureau, part of the U.S. Justice Department, considered the years 2005 to 2014 in its analysis.

Nonprofits and faith-based groups are among those who have assisted ex-offenders. We asked a couple of these groups in New Orleans what they’ve done to help.

“After inmates were released statewide last November, we saw a 20-percent increase in their numbers here late last year,” David Stepp, assistant director at the New Orleans Mission, said last week. “In a typical month, about 50 re-entry people, including former inmates and ex-offenders, come to us. We send our literature to re-entry offices at the prisons, and they share it with inmates. We also go into the prisons to do our ministering.”

Last fall, the New Orleans Mission worked with the state’s Department of Corrections during its big inmate release. “Prisoners must have an exit plan, including an address, before they can leave,” Stepp said. “They can use our address if arrangements are made with the DOC in advance.”

People released from prison walk from the Greyhound Bus station on Loyola Ave. over to the mission, Stepp said. Once there, they can opt to stay for up to 21 days at the mission in Central City, or they can sign up for long-term training at one of the mission’s retreats. “We have disciple training with residencies of a year or more for men at the Giving Hope Retreat in Lacombe and for women at the Lynhaven Retreat, both on the North Shore,” he said. In the first six months of their stays, residents receive counseling and faith-based teaching in a safe, drug- and alcohol-free environment. They don’t work at jobs then. “They’re training to be successful, productive Christian members of society,” Stepp said. “People from other faiths have gone through our training too.”

The mission’s disciples are former inmates, homeless people, substance abusers and those with mental illnesses. “After six months, they can work in jobs that the mission helps them find through our Divine Staffing service,” Stepp said. “They’re able to save 80 percent of their income then. Depending on their skills, they’re placed in construction, restaurants, hotels, automotive shops and other work.”

The recidivism rate now for former inmates receiving services from the New Orleans Mission is 15.9 percent in the first year, well below state and national averages, Stepp said. “Many of them move into permanent housing, some with the help of UNITY, and to full-time jobs,” he said. “Some work at the New Orleans Mission. Others stay at our retreats for another year to complete master’s programs.”

UNITY of Greater New Orleans is a nonprofit devoted to housing the homeless.

Former inmates particularly need housing and employment, William Jessee, president of Goodwill Industries of Southeastern Louisiana, said last week. “Goodwill has helped people with criminal records overcome the challenges of reintegrating into their communities,” he said. The group served 386 ex-offenders in Southeast Louisiana last year. “We provide directly, or with our partners, case management, skills training, housing, mentoring and employment services for men and women in work-release programs, recovery houses and residential release centers,” he said. Ex-offenders that his group has served have been released in the last seven years by the state’s Department of Corrections, the federal prison system and Orleans Parish Prison.

“We take a holistic approach,” Jessee said. “The state’s recidivism rate has been between 46 and 49 percent in recent years, and it has varied between parishes, with Orleans being highest. Recidivism by former prisoners and offenders in our programs has been five percent since 2012.” Local employers who have hired people in the group’s programs include Chisesi Brothers Meat Packing, Hyatt Regency New Orleans, Imperial Trading, Centerplate and the New Orleans Sewerage & Water Board.

According to a study released in August by Adam Gelb and Tracy Velazquez at The Pew Charitable Trusts in Philadelphia, reducing recidivism cuts taxpayer spending on prisons, improves public safety and helps former inmates resume family responsibilities. But they said there isn’t enough data to understand the full effects of federal, state and local efforts to lower recidivism.

A number of politicians, including Louisiana’s Republican Senator John Kennedy, and members of the public don’t want victims of crimes to be forgotten in the reform process. Under state law, 70 percent of the savings from criminal justice reforms must be used to support victims, improve public safety and reduce recidivism.

In fiscal 2018, the state’s savings from holding fewer prisoners and other reforms to the system totaled $12.2 million. That was double projections by Pew analysts earlier in the year. As of July, Louisiana’s inmate population had slid below 33,000 to the lowest in two decades.

Last Tuesday, Governor Edwards said $1.7 million from those savings has been awarded for victims’ services to the Louisiana Commission on Law Enforcement and the Administration of Criminal Justice, collectively known as LCLE. That includes $300,000 to develop an electronic interface with the Clerks of Court in all state parishes so that they can access a system alerting victims about prisoner releases; $750,000 to establish a Family Justice Center in East Baton Rouge to help victims of domestic violence and sexual assault stay safe; $300,000 to a Crime Victims Reparations Fund to pay a backlog of victims’ claims; $300,000 to upgrade the e-abilities of the Louisiana Attorney General’s Child Predator Task Force; and $250,000 to the LCLE to cover its expenses managing these programs.

As for prisoners, Stepp at the New Orleans Mission said that while Louisiana improved to the second-most incarcerated state this year, it still isn’t far from Oklahoma—which is now the most incarcerated. The Pelican State must expand its re-entry services to keep former inmates out of prison, he and others said.

Democratic Governor Edwards met with President Donald Trump, members of Trump’s administration and several Republican governors in New Jersey in early August to discuss criminal justice reforms and ways to cut recidivism. Governors Phil Bryant of Mississippi, Nathan Deal of Georgia, Matt Bevin of Kentucky and Doug Burgum of North Dakota were at the table.

“What we were doing earlier in Louisiana wasn’t working,” Pastorick said last week. “We’ve looked to other states for guidance.” He believes last year’s reforms will prove effective and that recidivism is on the decline here.

This article originally published in the October 22, 2018 print edition of The Louisiana Weekly newspaper.

This article originally appeared in The Louisiana Weekly.