Louisiana is once again the number one incarcerator per capita in the country after criminal justice reform in Oklahoma bumps the state back into the top spot.
Louisiana fell to 49th after the 2017 criminal justice reforms went into effect, but Sentencing Project Executive Director Marc Mauer says this news is proof we still a lot of work to do.
“Louisiana has made some progress through legislation in recent years, but in many ways, it has only skimmed the surface of what needs to be done,” says Mauer.
The bipartisan reforms expanded parole opportunities and reduced the amount of time nonviolent criminals had to spend in jail.
Mauer says Louisiana’s incarceration rate remains sky high due to a longstanding policy of not allowing parole opportunities for those with life sentences in Louisiana jails.
“It’s those very long sentences that are really driving a lot of the excess population in Louisiana prisons,” says Mauer.
A Sentencing Project study showed Louisiana topped the nation in 2017 with 13% of it’s prison population being lifers without the chance of parole.
Mauer says Louisiana needs to substantially reduce the use of life without parole sentences. He adds the aging populations created by the policy are expensive and don’t make us any safer.
“In (people’s) late teens and early 20s, there is a much higher risk of involvement in crime, but that starts to decline pretty rapidly by their late 20s and 30s,” says Mauer.
