La. moves to lock up fewer people
Biggest U.S. jailer changes tack, but old felons left out
ANGOLA, La. —When he was young and strong, Clyde Giddens fought with a man and stabbed him to death, leading to a life sentence for murder. Fifty-five years later, Giddens, 76, uses a wheelchair and a hospital bed at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, after breaking a hip and suffering a stroke.
He hoped a proposal to release old and sick violent offenders in Louisiana would allow him to live with his niece in Shreveport, La.
“I’m no longer a danger,” Giddens said last month at Angola, his voice barely above a whisper.
But in a deal announced Tuesday, Democratic Gov. John Bel Edwards agreed to drop the proposal to offer early parole to geriatric prisoners in exchange for state district attorneys’ support for easing penalties for nonviolent offenders — changes that aim to reduce Louisiana’s prison population by 10 percent in a decade.
It’s a landmark agreement for Louisiana, which locks up residents at a rate twice the national average, making it the country’s biggest jailer per capita. An unusual coalition of business and political leaders, religious groups and liberal activists has been working to end the state’s ignominious distinction with a package of bills that would shorten some prison sentences, prevent certain nonviolent offenders from going to prison and expand eligibility for parole.
The changes would come as U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions moves federal sentencing in the opposite direction, toward stricter penalties. Last week, he directed federal prosecutors to impose charges that carry the most severe sentences, a reversal of the Obama administration’s practice.
“We are returning to the enforcement of the laws as passed by Congress, plain and simple,” Sessions said Friday. “If you are a drug trafficker, we will not look the other way, we will not be willfully blind to your misconduct.”
In Louisiana, district attorneys and sheriffs opposed early release for old convicted murderers and rapists.
“They’re going to risk public safety and we would go back on the promises to victims that were raped and the families of those who were killed,” said Bo Duhé, a district attorney in the state, before the deal with Edwards was reached.
Edwards argued that the sentencing changes would make Louisiana safer by saving money that the legislation shifts to programs that help prepare inmates to re-enter society and stay out of trouble.
Other proponents point to studies showing that former inmates become less likely to commit crimes as they age, a phenomenon they call “criminal menopause.”
But Tuesday’s deal means Louisiana will remain one of two states that keep felons convicted of second-degree murder behind bars for life. It is likely that the state legislature will approve the bills related to nonviolent offenders before its regular session ends June 8.
The state Senate on Tuesday easily approved major components of the deal reached with law enforcement officials.
“This compromise package contains smart, aggressive reforms that will certainly improve public safety,” Edwards told reporters Tuesday.
In Louisiana, proponents are armed with the findings of a blue-ribbon task force that reported that the state sends nonviolent offenders to prison at higher rates than other states and gives felons fewer opportunities for release.
Spearheading the effort to pass the changes is Jimmy LeBlanc, the state corrections secretary under the previous Republican governor, Bobby Jindal, and now Edwards.
“What we’re doing is not working,” LeBlanc said. “The stats are there.”
The state imprisoned 816 people per 100,000 in 2014 compared with 700 per 100,000 in Oklahoma and 633 per 100,000 in Alabama, the states with the secondand third-highest incarceration rate, according to the latest available figures in the Louisiana task force report.
Propelling the high rates in Louisiana is the propensity to imprison people convicted of nonviolent offenses, principally drugs and theft.
The main motivation for conservatives is to save money in a budget-strapped state that has lost 25,000 jobs over the past two years because of the drop in oil prices.
As a whole, the changes would save an estimated $262 million over the next decade. The plan calls for investing 70 percent of the savings in programs that aim to reduce recidivism, like job skills training and drug abuse counseling. Currently, 1 in 3 people released from prison return within three years.
Only about 1 in 10 inmates participate in the types of rehabilitation programs contemplated in the task force report.
Offering parole to older inmates convicted of violent offenses — and other changes dropped from the final plan — would have lowered the projected imprisonment rate below Oklahoma’s and saved an additional $38 million over a decade.
About 4,300 of Louisiana’s 4,850 incarcerated lifers are housed at Angola. The site of the 1995 movie, “Dead Man Walking,” Angola is an 18,000-acre prison farm bounded on three sides by the Mississippi River.
Giddens is one of the 50 or so inmates in the hospital’s nursing units, where cans of Ensure, oxygen tanks and pitchers of water sit on nightstands next to beds in a dormitory setting.
Angola has a hospice and two cemeteries. One has about 250 white crosses featuring the inmates’ names, dates of death and their Department of Corrections numbers. Two or three inmates die each month of natural causes and illnesses, said Gary Young, an assistant warden.
Advocating for the early release of old violent offenders, Louisianans for Prison Alternatives held a rally on the steps of the state capitol recently before the deal was reached. Among those attending was Clarence Batiste, whose brother Alton has spent 40 years at Angola for aggravated rape. Two days after the rally, Alton Batiste shuffled into a waiting room at Camp F at Angola, guided to his seat by an inmate nicknamed “Shorty” who is serving time for second-degree murder. Alton Batiste, 72, is blind and frail.
“What I did was wrong,” Batiste said of his crime. “I can admit that. But I don’t represent a threat to society anymore.”
Asked what he would do if he were released, Batiste said, “I’d like to go to church and do Bible study. It’s what I do here every day.”