NEW ORLEANS – Representatives of the Mayor’s Office, Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office and other local criminal justice agencies traveled to Chicago yesterday as part of an ongoing strategic planning process for the MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge, an initiative to reduce over-incarceration in local jails by changing the way Americans think about and use jails.
Despite growing national attention to the large number of Americans confined in state and federal prisons, significantly less attention has been paid to local justice systems, where the criminal justice system primarily operates and where over-incarceration begins. Jail populations have more than tripled since the 1980s, as have cumulative expenditures related to building and running them. According to recent research from the Vera Institute of Justice, nearly 75 percent of the population of both sentenced offenders and pretrial detainees are in jail for nonviolent offenses such as traffic, property, drug, or public order violations. Further, low-income individuals and communities of color disproportionately experience the negative consequences of incarceration.
With funding from the Safety and Justice Challenge, the New Orleans delegation will attend a convening in Chicago with 19 other grantee jurisdictions working with expert consultants to develop a plan for local justice system improvement. A great deal of work has already been accomplished by Challenge Network sites and this convening will provide an opportunity to share progress, learn from peers, build capacity and prepare for developing an implementation proposal for the second phase of the Safety and Justice Challenge.
In May 2015, New Orleans was one of 20 jurisdictions selected to receive a $150,000 grant to create a fairer, more effective local justice system. The grant is a part of the Safety and Justice Challenge—the Foundation’s $75 million initiative to reduce over-incarceration by changing the way America thinks about and uses jails. New Orleans has been using the support to continue its efforts to interrupt the cycle of incarceration by employing smart polices to minimize the use of local detention.
Since receipt of the grant, the Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice Coordination and the Sheriff’s Office have led a joint planning effort to develop a proposal that will improve how the city arrests, detains and prosecutes individuals. The effort has involved representatives from the Police Department, District Attorney’s Office, Public Defenders, Criminal District Court, Municipal Court and Orleans Parish Parole and Probation. Community members have also been involved with identifying top priorities for right-sizing the system and making overall improvements. Both groups have collected and analyzed real-time data from the Orleans Parish criminal justice system stakeholders, which has informed decision making and pinpointed areas for improvement. In early 2016, proposals to reduce local incarceration will be sent to the MacArthur Foundation for consideration of a second round of funding – between $500,000 and $2 million annually – to implement the plan over two years.
“In the last five years, we’ve been committed to reducing the local prison capacity and overuse of jails,” said Mayor Mitch Landrieu. “But there is more work to be done. I am proud to work with leaders of the criminal justice system to continue to make smart decisions about how we arrest, detain and prosecute. This collaboration would not be possible without the support of the McArthur Foundation. We look forward to upholding New Orleans’ reputation as a laboratory for innovation and change as we continue to work toward changing the way we think about the use jails.”
“We are ushering in a new era of cooperation amongst agencies in the public safety sector,” said Orleans Parish Sheriff Marlin N. Gusman. “It is important to ensure that the safety needs of all citizens are met, in and out of the criminal justice system.”
