Posted on 03/03/2009 7:07:29 AM PST by BBell
BATON ROUGE -- One out of every 55 Louisiana residents is behind bars, a higher incarceration rate than any other state, according to research released today by a Washington, D.C., nonprofit group.
One in 26 Louisiana adults is under correctional control, if probation and parole are included, the group found.
The Pew Center for the States study of 2007 U.S. Census data found that Louisiana's incarceration rate spiked by 272 percent since 1982. That rate of increase is far from the nation's highest of 357 percent in North Dakota, and not far from Mississippi's 256 percent increase. Neighbor states Texas and Arkansas have seen increases around 200 percent.
The Pew group argued that, particularly during a recession, rising costs of incarceration should push states to reduce prison spending by moving more nonviolent inmates out of prisons and into community-based parole and probation systems. One researcher pointed to Texas, where he said a recent shift in the politics of corrections has led to policy changes and a leveling off of that state's incarceration rate.
"I think what we're seeing is that the politics of this issue are changing," said Adam Gelb, director of Pew's public safety performance project. "The old question used to be, 'How can we demonstrate we're tough on crime?' More and more, policy-makers from both sides of the aisle are asking a better question, which is: 'How do we get taxpayers a better return on their dollars?"
Gelb said Texas had saved $500 million by expanding parole and probation, while stopping the construction of new prisons.
Louisiana's prison's chief said he's thinking along the same lines -- but is unable to back a big shift toward parole and probation, partly because those parts of his agency are already overburdened with work.
"Some states are paroling people out, but we're not
(Excerpt) Read more at nola.com ...
“The old question used to be, ‘How can we demonstrate we’re tough on crime?’ More and more, policy-makers from both sides of the aisle are asking a better question, which is: ‘How do we get taxpayers a better return on their dollars?”
Exactly. But states spend so much on prisons they have nothing left for alternatives.
PS, the popuation of New Orleans is 70+% Black.
It’s Jindal’s fault
We had a class of Lts. on up to deputy wardens. We usually sent reading material in advance but for some reason it was not done for this class. So, they decided to give the folks the first 30 minutes of class time to read the material.
About 5 minutes in, a captain pulled my friend aside and they went into the hallway. The captain told him that most of the people in the class could not read the material.
At that time, the guards were being paid $315 a month, but they were allowed to bring legals items from the street and sell them to the inmates (sodas, cigarettes, etc.) to supplement their income.
It is not politically correct to draw comparisons between issues such as illiteracy and ethnic groups living in certain places. (sarcasm)
What always gets me is that many big cities with big minority populations have the worst schools, the worst social problems, etc. Yet these places have also had Democrats in charge for many many years. And many cities with big black populations have had black mayors, black school superintendents, mostly black teachers in schools, black chiefs of police, etc. If so many of their problems were due to racism and/or Republican policies, these cities should be shining cities on a hill, glittering test cases of the superior values of Democrats and liberals. Instead too many of these places are war zones and basket cases.
I wonder what the figures would be if you took New Orleans out of the mix. I know that the Tennessee numbers would be a lot different if Memphis was not included.
And, they'll explode as this depression worsens. That's the real reason people are buying guns/ammo...they know.
PS, the popuation of New Orleans is 70+% Black.
Do you think that still holds post Katrina?. I know the hispanic population increased some with the workers coming in and some of the black population left never to return. Anyway we’ll see a new census track in early 2011 I guess. Take care.
Europeans used to complain about our (American) high violence/crime numbers until someone subtracted out the Black numbers and it was discovered that our numbers were the same as the Europeans.
It's like that everywhere. Take Detroit out of Michigan, Chicago out of Illinois, Oakland out of the Bay Area and on and on. Take out the predatory, criminal black underclass from the crime rates and we'd have a safe nation. Homicide rates are actually falling in this country --except black on black homicide, which is rising!
But yet, as a nation, we continue to pretend that what I said is not true to the point where I won't be surprised if this post is removed.
GMTA
Yup. Pretend, pretend, pretend!!
We must find and accept the truth if anything is ever going to change.
Probably reflects Louisiana’s alcohol problem. That and years of government promoted corruption.
Louisiana also has one of the highest percentage of minorities of any state. It isn’t a coincidence.
“our numbers were the same as the Europeans.”
Actually our “numbers” are probably much better than the Europeans now. Especially for the UK.
I feel sorry for that poor horse. That’s a lot of weight to carry.
O come on... Inmates are the only ones who can’t leave the state.
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