Louisiana Deliberately Indifferent to Keeping Inmates Past Release Date, Justice Dept. Says

The department, citing evidence uncovered by lawyers representing incarcerated people, concluded that the state has known about the problem for at least a decade and done little to address it.

WASHINGTON The Justice Department has found that Louisianas longstanding practice of detaining more than a quarter of its inmates beyond their court-ordered release dates violates the Constitution.

The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody, according to a copy of a report obtained by The New York Times on Wednesday. The report examined incarceration patterns of inmates held in state facilities and jails run by parishes, the state equivalent of county governments.

From January 2022 to April 2022, 27 percent of the people who were legally entitled to be released from state custody, some for minor crimes or first-time offenses, were held past their release dates. About 24 percent of those improperly detained had been held 90 days or longer past their release days, the Justice Department found.