Vera Institute of Justice

1. For 2005 jail population numbers, see William J. Sabol, Ph.D. and Todd D. Minton, “Jail Inmates at Midyear 2007,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (Washington, DC: Office of Justice Programs, 2008), www.csdp.org/research/jim07.pdf. For residency population data, see U.S. Census Bureau, Population Estimates Program, Annual Estimates of the Resident Population for Counties: April 1, 2000 to July 1, 2009, 2010.

2. Ram Subramanian, Ruth Delaney, and Stephen Roberts, et al., Incarceration’s Front Door: The Misuse of Jails in America (New York: Vera Institute of Justice, 2015), https://www.vera.org/publications/incarcerations-front-door-the-misuse-of-jails-in-america.

3. Cynthia Mamalian, State of the Science of Pretrial Risk Assessment (Gaithersburg, MD: Pretrial Justice Institute, 2011), https://www.bja.gov/publications/pji_pretrialriskassessment.pdf.

4. James Austin, Orleans Prison Population Trends and Facility Options (Presentation to New Orleans City Council, July 2015), 5.

5. Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice Coordination, Jail Population Management Subcommittee of the Sanford “Sandy” Krasnoff Criminal Justice Council, May 23, 2017, (New Orleans: Mayor’s Office of Criminal Justice Coordination, 2017), 4-5.  Chief Noel of the New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) shared that the department is shifting to the strategy of “proactive policing,” which implies an increased police presence and more frequent arrests for less serious crimes.

6. It is important to note that many of those detained are not housed in the New Orleans jail, but instead are held in Hunt Correctional Center and other detention centers across the state.

7. In 2016, there were an estimated 391,495 New Orleans residents. The national average for jail incarceration is 2.34 per 1,000. There would be 916 people in jail if New Orleans’s incarceration rate was at the national average. See U.S. Census Bureau, Cities and Towns (Incorporated Places and Minor Civil Divisions), Annual Estimates: April 1, 2010 to July 1, 2016 (Washington, DC: U.S. Census Bureau, 2017); and Todd D. Minton and Zhen Zeng, “Jail Inmates at Midyear 2014,” Bureau of Justice Statistics Bulletin (Washington, DC: U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics, 2015), https://perma.cc/4PHV-UJYL.

8. The goal to reduce the jail population to 1,277 was mandated by the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation’s Safety and Justice Challenge. It is a 21 percent reduction from the baseline population.

9. Louisiana law mandates that an indictment or information shall be filed within 45 days of the arrest for misdemeanors, and 60 days of the arrest if the defendant is being held in custody.

10. United States v. Salerno, 794 F.2d 64, 74 (2d Cir. 1986), rev'd, 107 S. Ct. 2095 (1987).

11. Christopher T. Lowenkamp, Marie VanNostrand, and Alexander Holsinger, The Hidden Costs of Pretrial Detention (Houston: The Laura and John Arnold Foundation, 2013).