Despite scant plans and heated criticism, Louisiana Senate committee passes bills to overhaul New Orleans courts
Drastic legislative cuts would eliminate 11 judgeships and would defund the position of recently elected clerk Calvin Duncan.
Category
Criminal Justice
Asking why and how, and what needs to be done.
Stop building prisons and start investing in kids: the proven roadmap that Louisiana has ignored for 25 years
State lawmakers push to expand laws allowing guns on college campuses
“We can trust people with their rights,” says the sponsor of a campus-carry gun bill introduced in Louisiana, as debate simmers nationwide over self-defense versus a greater risk of gun violence.
The classroom as first courtroom: Jada’s story
Jada and other Black girls often take the first steps toward the delinquency pipeline in the schoolroom, where teachers too often misread curiosity as sassiness—or as Louisiana law describes it, "willful disobedience."
The troubling side of public surveillance
The NOPD recently proposed using drones as first responders. Across the nation, cameras seem to be popping up everywhere. But many agencies have few safeguards to prevent abuse by individual officers.
A year ago, we killed Jessie Hoffman
Jessie represents everything that is wrong with Louisiana’s death-penalty system, which costs taxpayers roughly $15 million a year and has shockingly little reliability in its convictions, due to an 80% reversal rate.
The girlhood to prison pipeline: how Louisiana policy fails Black girls
The state of Louisiana is building a long-needed door for women leaving prison. But for girls leaving childhood detention, there is no threshold, much less a door.
NOPD floats ‘Drone as First Responder’ model, raising privacy concerns
On Monday, the French Quarter Management District’s security and enforcement committee took the first step toward drone response in New Orleans, as it voted to finance one $250,000 NOPD drone and docking station.
A whisper from Angola: the case of Solomon Birdsong
His hope is for a second chance not to live a life of leisure, but to live a life of purpose under the weight of his past, to test the rehabilitation he claims in the real world.
Two New Orleans men, Wee and ‛Miracle Man,’ feel young but see how prison accelerates aging
Because of decades of high-stress and deficient healthcare, a 59-year-old in prison has a ‘geriatric morbidity’ that's equivalent to a 75-year-old on the outside.
