According to a 2017 Louisiana state auditor’s report, the state’s prison system and local jails engage in a practice of routinely keeping people locked up past their release dates—for weeks, months, and, in some cases, even years. Though the official numbers aren’t quite clear, it seems that hundreds of people have been impacted. According to NOLA.com, for every week over the last decade, court records show that prison staff found at least one person who remained incarcerated longer than was required by their sentence. In one extreme example, one state inmate, James Chowns, was kept for an absolutely inexcusable amount of time. Chowns “was imprisoned 960 days, almost three years, past his official release date.” Chowns was sentenced in 2002 for aggravated incest. He received five years in prison with probation of 10 years. Due to a clerical error, it was determined incorrectly that he was to spend 10 years in prison.
Overdetention in Louisiana’s criminal justice system is a problem that appears to have an easy fix, according to criminal justice experts. They say that it requires state and local authorities to improve their coordination with each other. Instead, they pass the buck—with the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office placing the blame on the Louisiana Department of Corrections (DOC), and the DOC claiming it’s the fault of the sheriff’s office. While these two entities duke it out, their lack of coordination is ruining lives and wasting millions of dollars of taxpayer money. It’s an issue that will now get sorted out in court, because civil rights lawyers are suing both of them. They say that this is a problem that was well-known by officials for years, and that they simply failed to address it.
“The criminal justice system is based on the idea that if you do a crime you serve your time and then you go free. And that going free part is not being carried out correctly in Louisiana,” said civil rights attorney William Most, who has lawsuits pending against DOC and local sheriff’s offices related to the alleged overdetention of five different clients.
Part of what these cases will come down to is a simple question that also demonstrates the problem in Louisiana: “Does the sheriff’s office or the Department of Corrections have the right to keep someone imprisoned past their scheduled release date for any reason, and if so, how long?” So far, it seems that the law is not on the side of the state. In 2005, Judge Julie E. Carnes, a then-federal judge in Atlanta, wrote that she was unable to find a case in which it was ruled constitutionally permissible to detain a person beyond their release date. And in 2011, the 5th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled that prison officials must ensure a “timely release” for inmates. The time specified for a timely release is less than 48 hours.
While poor coordination is a factor, the DOC is also inconsistent in calculating how much time people should spend in prison in the first place, and when they are released and the aforementioned clerical errors, as in the Chowns case, also play a role. In 2017, when a state auditor asked two DOC staffers to calculate release dates on the same offender, each used a different method. The result? Two different release dates that differed by a whopping 186 days! The inconsistency in calculation rates is a main reason for overdetention. It has also resulted in multiple lawsuits and two recent settlements totaling $250,000.
Sadly, it doesn’t seem that the state criminal justice system will change until it is forced to do so by law. In response to the report, DOC Secretary James LeBlanc expressed support for his staff, noting that calculating release dates is a task that is “very complex and ever changing” and that it takes time and training for staff to know and understand all the laws and criteria involved. Meanwhile, it staff are overworked and overburdened: Most of them are entry-level and work on an average of 4,123 files each month. In 2018, the staff turnover rate was 21 percent.
Government bureaucracy is almost always a nightmare, whether it’s local, state, or federal. And while change is always slow-moving in those systems, it absolutely shouldn’t be when it comes to an unlawful and unjust practice such as keeping people in jail for longer than is required. It’s essentially kidnapping, and we know that it has a disproportionate impact on people of color and the poor. There are a number of recommendations for fixing the problem, which include replacing the DOC’s data system, better training for employees, and coordination among agencies and departments. Of course, each of these things requires an investment of time and money, but they are worth it, both for the lives of the detained and their families as well as to save taxpayer money and resources. But it’s likely a tough sell, given that our society often considers jail and prison populations disposable. However, we can’t truly call ourselves a democracy while this kind of practice is routinely happening and remains unchecked. We can, and must, do better than this.