Photo by William Widmer/The New York Times/Redux
The Waiting Game
From Arrest to Trial in New Orleans
Louisiana
Vera works with government and community partners across the country to advance research, analyze policy, pilot programs, and implement solutions on the ground. Working on nearly 60 projects in 40 states, Vera is committed to developing solutions to the most pressing injustices of our day. This page encompasses all of Vera’s work in Louisiana, and any related news coverage.
Related Work
How Can District Attorneys’ Offices Use Restorative Justice?
Restorative justice is a framework that views crime, conflict, and wrongdoing as harm to relationships and not merely violation of the law by focusing on people who have been harmed and their needs, while also holding people who have caused harm directly accountable for those needs. Restorative justice successes include reduced recidivism, high sat ...
NOPD Arrest Practices During a Pandemic (March – May 2020)
Voter Tools: Questions for Candidates for New Orleans District Attorney
To be an informed voter, it is important to understand the role of a district attorney (DA) and the impact of the DA’s choices. The Vera Institute of Justice’s New Orleans office developed this tool as a guide for residents participating in DA candidate forums and debates or performing research on the candidates. Voters can use this tool to familia ...
Who's Got the Power
How to urgently decarcerate Louisiana in the era of COVID-19
As COVID-19 cases continue to rise, the novel coronavirus remains a threat to incarcerated people. In Louisiana, there are more than 30,000 people serving sentences in prisons and jails. Many people across the state urged the governor, the head of the Department of Corrections and Public Safety (DOC), and local lawmakers to act within their power t ...
Justice & Humanity in a Time of Pandemic Webinar
Facing a crisis no one was prepared for, Vera's New Orleans office swiftly executed a three-part COVID strategy—including statewide education, data analysis, and communication with judges—to assist local and statewide actors in their understanding of what they should know and what they could do, and follow up to help where needed. Vera's New Orlean ...
People in Jail in 2019
See our updated report, "People in Jail and Prison in 2020," here. Researchers from the Vera Institute of Justice, with support from Google.org Fellows, collected data on the number of people in local jails at midyear in both 2018 and 2019 to provide timely information on how incarceration is changing in the United States. This report fills a gap u ...
A Piece of the Puzzle
State Financial Aid for Incarcerated Students
Postsecondary education in prison puts people on a path toward a brighter future by disrupting the cycle of poverty and incarceration. But it has not been offered at scale due to the numerous barriers—including the 1994 ban on Pell Grants to people in prison—that prevent students and postsecondary institutions from accessing state and federal fundi ...
A Better Way
Global Citizen sat down with Vera’s New Orleans director, Will Snowden, to discuss ending money injustice in New Orleans. The short video that came of that discussion describes how money bail and conviction fines and fees are unnecessary, unlawful, and undermine safety and equity. It points to a better way, set out in Vera’s report, Paid in Full: A ...
Paid in Full
A Plan to End Money Injustice in New Orleans
The role that money—in the form of bail, fines and fees—plays in criminal justice systems has come under increased focus. These practices have long plagued New Orleans, driving jail incarceration and costing struggling families—most of them black—millions. Two federal courts recently ruled that judges cannot lawfully impose money bail or enforce co ...
How New Orleans Funds Justice
The principal agencies of the New Orleans local criminal justice system—the state and municipal criminal courts, the district attorney’s office, the public defender’s office, and the sheriff’s office—rely significantly on revenues from fees imposed on people who are arrested. This funding structure is the product of state law, state and local budge ...
New Orleans Tricentennial
Visions of Justice
What should justice look like in New Orleans for the next three hundred years? The criminal justice system in New Orleans absorbs the lion’s share of the city’s operating budget. With new and renewed leadership in this important year in our city’s history, it is time to dig deep into what it means to build a system that delivers on the promise of ...