Date: 05-21-2023
Vera's datahub provides illuminating access to parish-level data on arrests, pretrial detention, incarceration, and local spending on the criminal legal system. |
From The Vera Institute:
Louisiana’s 64 parishes range from bustling cities to vast rural stretches, from the parks and preserves of the north to the swamps and marshes of the gulf. Yet, they all share one defining characteristic: a stake in the state’s vast network of jails, prisons, and juvenile detention facilities.
The prevalence of incarceration in Louisiana is hard to see in many places due to an alarming lack of transparency and data, as well as a convoluted carceral landscape where local jails also function as prisons. But parish- and state-level research by the Vera Institute of Justice brings much-needed clarity to this picture. Vera’s datahub provides illuminating access to parish-level data on arrests, pretrial detention, incarceration, and local spending on the criminal legal system. Together, these data points create a detailed—and highly damning—picture of mass incarceration in Louisiana.
It is a system of clear winners and losers, financially benefiting those with a stake in the system, including the state, local sheriffs, and private corporations. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections pays local jails?$177 million?annually to hold more than half the people who have been sentenced to prison.
But the people of Louisiana are losing. If incarceration created safety, Louisiana would be among the safest places in the world. Instead, making Louisiana a safer place requires scaling back its vast incarceration system and reallocating funds to the?things that actually make communities safe: jobs, housing, healthcare, good schools, and infrastructure.
Conversations around Louisiana’s high incarceration rates tend to center on dense population centers. But a closer look at the data collected by Vera tells a different story: incarceration has expanded across the state, especially in rural parishes.
Read the full report here.
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