Jails + Prisons

an exterior view of prison cells

People incarcerated by non-unanimous juries won’t get life line

BY: - May 27, 2023

The House voted 48-38 to kill a bill Thursday that would have created an avenue of hope for prisoners who were convicted by non-unanimous juries before the U.S. Supreme Court outlawed the practice. House Bill 588 would have created a special committee for providing parole for up to roughly 1,500 people who had been convicted […]

Entrance to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola

Death penalty, despite high cost and few executions, stays put in Louisiana

BY: - May 25, 2023

A legislative effort to eliminate the death penalty as a form of criminal punishment in Louisiana failed Wednesday, despite the state not having executed anyone involuntarily in over 20 years. Advocates for ending capital punishment stressed that 11 death row inmates have been exonerated or had their convictions reversed, compared with 28 executed, since Louisiana […]

the silhouette of a man in front of a police mugshot background that measures height

Police mugshots could soon be made public again

BY: - May 23, 2023

The Louisiana Senate is on track to reverse a bill it passed unanimously just a year ago that limited the release of mugshots of people accused of non-violent offenses prior to conviction.  House Bill 265, sponsored by Rep. Bryan Fontenot, R-Thibodaux, would effectively repeal most of a law Sen. Royce Duplessis, D-New Orleans, sponsored last […]

Security camera footage shows guards at the Northeast New Mexico Correctional Facility move Carl Berry into solitary confinement after they were seen inside his cell for about eight minutes on April 15, 2021.

Lawsuit: NM prison guard tells Black man, ‘Let me guess, you can’t breathe?’

BY: - April 16, 2023

This story contains graphic descriptions of violence, sexual abuse, and a racist threat. During a shakedown in the spring of 2021, a New Mexico prison guard, with his foot on the back of a Black man who lay on the floor of his cell surrounded by other guards, taunted him by saying, “Let me guess, […]

Missing persons posters for Robert “Berta” Enoch, who died shortly after being arrested on April 3, 2023.

Family left with questions after man dies in custody of rural sheriff’s office

BY: - April 15, 2023

State investigators are reviewing the death of a man shortly after his arrest on April 3 by Charles Mix County sheriff’s deputies. Friends of 35-year-old Robert Dennis “Berta” Enoch have a host of questions about how someone who’d expressed a desire to get well and had secured a place at a treatment center just days […]

A portrait of Bobby Norfleet

A miscarriage of justice, a life in prison

BY: - April 9, 2023

This story mentions sexual assault. It was April 2022, and come summer 66-year-old Bobby Norfleet would begin another year behind bars. He bore the marks of 44 years in North Carolina prisons. He had a lump in his left leg. He didn’t have any teeth. His dentures had broken, so talking was difficult. Bobby’s younger […]

an incarcerated person stands behind bars in a prison corridor

As critics note problems of mass incarceration, local jails add more beds

BY: - April 7, 2023

NEW ORLEANS — Louisiana’s standing as one of the world’s most incarcerated places is often blamed on prison and jail admissions from major population centers like New Orleans, Baton Rouge and Shreveport. But an explosion in new beds and pretrial detention rates in local jails across the state’s rural parishes has played an even greater […]

Entrance to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola

Louisiana spent $7.7 million on death penalty defense. It hasn’t executed anyone in 13 years.

BY: - March 21, 2023

Louisiana spent $7.7 million providing legal defense to people facing the death penalty in 2022, according to the Louisiana Public Defender’s Office, even though the state hasn’t executed anyone in 13 years.  The most recently Louisiana has put someone to death was Gerald Bordelon in January 2010, after he waived his right to legal appeals […]

Davante Lewis

New state utility regulator wants to reduce rates, introduce renewable mandates

BY: - February 17, 2023

After defying the odds to become the first openly LGBTQ person elected to a statewide office, Davante Lewis intends to use the momentum to take on utility giants such as Entergy and move the state toward more renewable energy in his first six-year term on Louisiana’s Public Service Commission.  Many see Lewis’ victory as a […]

an incarcerated person stands behind bars in a prison corridor

DOC ‘deliberately indifferent’ about releasing incarcerated people on time, Justice Dept. finds

BY: - January 26, 2023

There is reason to believe Louisiana routinely holds incarcerated people beyond their release dates in violation of their rights under the U.S. Constitution, according to a U.S. Department of Justice investigation that covered the first four months of 2022. Findings of the probe, which involved information the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections provided […]

"No Trespassing" sign outside Jetson Center for Youth in Baker

Louisiana juvenile center repair costs up 75% to prevent escapes

BY: - January 24, 2023

Gov. John Bel Edwards and Louisiana lawmakers may end up spending 75% more than they intended on repairs to an incarcerated youth facility in order to fortify the building against escapes.  Lawmakers initially allocated $440,217 in May 2021 to fix damage at Acadiana Center for Youth in Bunkie. Less than two years later, the project […]

Entrance to Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola

Youth held at Angola allege violence from guards, extended lockdown in lawsuit

BY: - January 6, 2023

An incarcerated youth said guards at a controversial juvenile justice facility recently opened on the grounds of Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola have hit young people and used mace multiple times to restrain them. The building has also gone into lockdown for days at a time, where young people are only let out of their […]