Louisiana prisons often hold inmates past release date: Department of Justice
Louisiana’s prison system routinely locks inmates for weeks or months after their release, the U.S. Department of Justice said in a lawsuit filed Friday.
The lawsuit against the state comes after a years-long investigation into a pattern of “systemic over-detention” that violates prisoners’ rights and costs taxpayers millions of dollars each year.
Since at least 2012, more than a quarter of Louisiana prison inmates scheduled for release have passed their release dates, according to the Justice Department.
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The U.S. Department of Justice says Louisiana prisons often hold inmates for long periods of time after they have been released from prison. (Associated Press)
The Justice Department warned Louisiana officials last year that it could sue the state if it failed to fix the problem. Attorneys for the department argued that the state had made “meager efforts” to address the issues, noting that such attempts to resolve the issues were “inadequate” and showed a “deliberate indifference” to inmates’ constitutional rights.
“[T]The right to personal liberty includes the right to be released on time at the end of a court-mandated sentence,” Assistant Attorney General Christine Clark said in a statement.
“Indefinitely jailing people … not only infringes on individual freedoms, but also undermines public confidence in the fair and impartial application of our laws,” the statement added.
The U.S. Department of Justice says that since at least 2012, more than a quarter of inmates scheduled to be released from Louisiana prisons have exceeded their release dates. (Kevin Dickey/Getty Images)
Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry and state Attorney General Liz Muriel, both Republicans, blame the problem on “failed criminal justice reforms” pushed by “the previous administration.”
“Last year, we took significant action to keep Louisianans safe and ensure those who committed crimes were punished,” Landry and Muriel said in a joint statement to The Associated Press. “Louisiana is committed to To uphold the constitutional rights of Louisiana citizens.”
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Louisiana Governor Jeff Landry speaks at the CPAC Texas 2022 conference at the Hilton Anatole. (Radin/Pacific Press/LightRocket via Getty Images)
The two state officials also claim the lawsuit is a last-ditch effort by President Joe Biden, who leaves office next month, and they believe the incoming Trump-elected administration will not pursue the case.
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Advocates have repeatedly questioned conditions in Louisiana’s prison system, including at Angola, the country’s largest maximum-security prison, where inmates hand-pick vegetables on 18,000 acres. The site was once the Angora Plantation, a slave plantation owned by Isaac Franklin and named after Angola, the country of origin for many of the slaves who worked there.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
