LOUISIANA INCARCERATED HOW WE BUILT THE WORLD’S PRISON CAPITAL LOUISIANA IS THE WORLD’S PRISON CAPITAL. THE STATE IMPRISONS MORE OF ITS PEOPLE, PER HEAD, THAN ANY OF ITS U.S. COUNTERPARTS. FIRST AMONG AMERICANS ME ANS FIRST IN THE WORLD. LOUISIANA’S INCARCERATION RATE IS NEARLY FIVE TIMES IRAN’S, 13 TIMES CHINA’S AND 20 TIMES GERMANY’S. THE HIDDEN ENGINE BEHIND THE STATE’S WELL-OILED PRISON MACHINE IS COLD, HARD CASH. 1 SHERIFFS AND POLITICIANS HAVE FINANCIAL INCENTIVES TO KEEP PEOPLE LOCKED UP MAY 13, 2012 By Cindy Chang prison population has doubled, cost- Sta! writer ing taxpayers billions while New ouisiana is the world’s prison Orleans continues to lead the nation in capital. The state imprisons more homicides. of its people, per head, than any One in 86 adult Louisianians is doing of its U.S. counterparts. First time, nearly double the national aver- among Americans means first age. Among black men from New in the world. Louisiana’s incar- Orleans, one in 14 is behind bars; one ��eration rate is nearly ve times in seven is either in prison, on parole or Irans, 13 times Chinas and 20 on probation. Crime rates in Louisiana times Germany’s. are relatively high, but that does not LThe hidden engine behind the state’s begin to explain the state’s No. 1 rank- well-oiled prison machine is cold, hard ing, year after year, in the percentage of cash. A majority of Louisiana inmates residents it locks up. are housed in for-prot facilities, which In Louisiana, a two-time car burglar must be supplied with a constant inux can get 24 years without parole. A trio of human beings or a $182 million indus- of drug convictions can be enough to try will go bankrupt. land you at the Louisiana State Peniten- Several homegrown private pris- tiary at Angola for the rest of your life. on companies command a slice of the Almost every state lets judges decide market. But in a uniquely Louisiana when to mete out the severest punish- twist, most prison entrepreneurs are ment and when a sympathetic defen- rural sheriffs, who hold tremendous dant should have a chance at freedom sway in remote parishes like Madison, down the road. In Louisiana, murderers Avoyelles, East Carroll and Concor- automatically receive life without parole dia. A good portion of Louisiana law on the guilty votes of as few as 10 of 12 enforcement is financed with dollars jurors. legally skimmed off the top of prison The lobbying muscle of the sheriffs, operations. buttressed by a tough-on-crime elec- If the inmate count dips, sheriffs torate, keeps these harsh sentencing bleed money. Their constituents lose schemes rmly in place. jobs. The prison lobby ensures this does “Something has to be done — it just not happen by thwarting nearly every has to be done — about the long sen- reform that could result in fewer people tences,” said Angola Warden Burl Cain. behind bars. “Some people you can let out of here Meanwhile, inmates subsist in bare- that won’t hurt you and can be produc- bones conditions with few programs tive citizens, and we know the ones who to give them a better shot at becom- can’t.” ing productive citizens. Each inmate is Every dollar spent on prisons is a dol- worth $24.39 a day in state money, and lar not spent on schools, hospitals and sheriffs trade them like horses, unload- highways. Other states are strategically ing a few extras on a colleague who has reducing their prison populations — openings. A prison system that leased using tactics known in policy circles as its convicts as plantation labor in the “smart on crime.” Compared with the 1800s has come full circle and is again a national average, Louisiana has a much nexus for prot. In the past two decades, Louisiana’s CONTINUED 1 — CONTINUED — lower percentage of people incar- cerated for violent offenses and a much higher percentage behind bars for drug offenses — per- haps a signal that some nonvio- lent criminals could be dealt with differently. Do all of Louisianas 40,000 inmates need to be incarcerated for the interests of punishment and public safety to be served? Gov. Bobby Jindal, a conserva- tive Republican with presidential ambitions, says the answer is no. Despite locking up more people for longer periods than any other state, Louisiana has one of the highest rates of both violent and property crimes. Yet the state shows few signs of weaning itself off its prison dependence. “You have people who are so invested in maintaining the pres- ent system — not just the sher- iffs, but judges, prosecutors, oth- er people who have links to it,” said Burk Foster, a former pro- fessor at the University of Loui- siana-Lafayette and an expert on Louisiana prisons. “They don’t want to see the prison system get smaller or the number of people in custody reduced, even though the crime rate is down, because the good old boys are all linked together in the punishment net- work, which is good for them nancially and politically. Keeping the beds full In the early 1990s, when the incarceration rate was half what it is now, Louisiana was at a crossroads. Under a federal court order to reduce overcrowd- ing, the state had two choices: Lock up fewer people or build more prisons. It achieved the latter, not with new state prisons — there was no money for that — but by encour- laws in line with those of other and commutation — and get rid aging sheriffs to foot the con- states or by putting minor offend- of people who shouldn’t be here,” struction bills in return for future ers in alternative programs. The said Richard Crane, former gen- profits. The financial incentives new sheriffs’ beds were ready eral counsel for the Louisiana were so sweet, and the correc- and waiting. Overcrowding Department of Corrections. tions jobs so sought after, that became a thing of the past, even Today, wardens make daily new prisons sprouted up all over as the inmate population multi- rounds of calls to other sheriffs’ rural Louisiana. plied rapidly. prisons in search of convicts to ll The national prison popula- “If the sheriffs hadn’t built their beds. Urban areas such as tion was expanding at a rapid those extra spaces, we’d either New Orleans and Baton Rouge clip. Louisiana’s grew even faster. have to go to the Legislature and have an excess of sentenced crim- There was no need to rein in the say,’ Give us more money,’ or inals, while prisons in remote growth by keeping sentencing we’d have to reduce the sentenc- es, make it easier to get parole CONTINUED 1 — CONTINUED — parishes must import inmates charges such as drug pos- to survive. session, burglary or writing The more empty beds, the bad checks. State prisons are more an operation sinks into reserved for the worst of the the red. With maximum occu- worst. pancy and a thrifty touch with Yet it is the murderers, rap - expenses, a sheriff can divert ists and other long-termers the prots to his law enforce- who learn trades like weld- ment arm, outtting his depu- ing, auto mechanics, air-condi- ties with new squad cars, guns tioning repair and plumbing. and laptops. Inmates spend Angola’s Bible college offers months or years in 80-man dor- the only chance for Louisiana mitories with nothing to do and inmates to earn an undergrad- few educational opportunities uate degree. before being released into soci- Such opportunities are not ety with $10 and a bus ticket. available to the 52 percent Fred Schoonover, deputy serving their time in local pris- warden of the 522-bed Ten- ons. In a cruel irony, those sas Parish Detention Center who could benefit most are in northeast Louisiana, says unable to better themselves, he does not view inmates as a while men who will die in pris- “commodity.” But he acknowl- on proudly show off stfuls of edges that the prison’s busi- educational certicates. ness model is built on head Louisiana specializes in counts. Like other wardens in incarceration on the cheap, this part of the state, he wheels allocating by far the least mon- and deals to maintain his tal- ey per inmate of any state. ly of human beings. His boss, The $24.39 per diem is sev- Tensas Parish Sheriff Rickey eral times lower than what Jones, relies on him to keep Angola and other state-run the numbers up. prisons spend — even before “We struggle. I stay on the the sheriff takes his share. All phone a lot, calling all over the local wardens can offer is GED state, trying to hustle a few,” classes and perhaps an inmate- Schoonover said. led support group such as Some sheriffs, and even a Alcoholics Anonymous. Their few small towns, lease their facilities are cramped and air- prison rights to private com- less compared with the spa- panies. LaSalle Corrections, cious grounds of state prisons, based in Ruston, plays a role in where inmates walk along out- housing one of seven Louisiana door breezeways and stay busy prisoners. LCS Corrections with jobs or classes. Services, another homegrown With a criminal record, nd- company, runs three Louisiana ing work is tough. In ve years, prisons and is a major donor about half of the state’s ex-con- to political campaigns, includ- victs end up behind bars again. ing those of urban sheriffs Gregory Barber has seen who supply rural prisons with the contrast between state inmates.