Is Louisiana jailing too many people?

Unfortunately, Louisiana is the leader in one unfavorable statistic concerning criminal justice.

The state leads all other states by at least 5,500 in prison incarcerations, whether arrested for serious crimes or minor brushes with enforcement procedures.

It has been said for some time now that Louisiana is far too severe in dishing out prison sentences for nonviolent offenders. These offenders can be reformed without going to jail, but instead being given lessons in other ways that could be even more effective than prison.

Cost savings to the state would be very large in our prison system, which costs some $350 million a year.

Our Legislature has considered cutting down on imprisoning minor offenders, but has not gone very far and our incarceration rate is not just the highest in the country but probably the largest in the world per capita.

Louisiana’s two gubernatorial runoffs this year differ somewhat on suggested solutions to the problem.

“We have to look at strategies that have worked in other places,” said John Bel Edwards who is backed by the Louisiana Sheriff’s Association. He wants to release some 5,500 nonviolent prisoners.

Among those strategies are pretrial diversion programs, including sobriety and drug courts plus special programs for the mentally ill and even veterans. Edwards, who is a military veteran, claims the reduced costs in lowering incarceration could be reinvested in reducing crime.

Edwards’ opponent in the gubernatorial runoff, David Vitter, has referred news reporters to his plan on fighting violent crime and reforming criminal justice although it does not outline efforts to reduce the state’s prison population.

Lafayette Parish Sheriff Michael Neustrom, who is supporting Edwards in the governor’s race, reportedly said he believes progressive programs aiming to reduce the prison population are needed in the state.

“We need to do things differently,” he said.  Neustrom says Texas would be a good model for prison reform in Louisiana. Reportedly, there are nearly twice as many jailed in Louisiana per capita as the national average. In 2014, there were nearly 40,000 people in jail in the state.

With such a difference in percentage of state population and number of citizens jailed in Louisiana, we must be doing something wrong.

It’s time to find out what it is.