Louisiana routinely overdetains inmates, violating Constitution, U.S. says

Louisiana correction authorities routinely confine thousands of inmates beyond their release dates each year, in violation of the Constitution and wasting taxpayer funds, the U.S. Justice Department said Wednesday.

Overdetention is not unheard of in other states, nor in federal facilities, but the scale of Louisiana's actions — which the Justice Department attributed to state authorities being “deliberately indifferent” to “systemic” shortcomings — is significant. (If Louisiana were a country, it would have world's most incarcerated population on a per capita basis, according to the Prison Policy Initiative research and advocacy group.)

More than a quarter of the people due for release each year in Louisiana since at least 2012 were held past their release dates, according to the Justice Department, which began investigating the state with three U.S. Attorneys' offices in late 2020. And about a quarter of people who were held beyond their release date between January and April 2022 — the most recent period for which data is available — were kept for at least 90 extra days.

U.S. officials also allege that the state continued with the practices despite repeated notices from the federal government in the last decade. They say Louisiana's actions are a violation of the 14th Amendment, which prevents authorities from depriving people of their liberty without due process.

Louisiana's Department of Public Safety and Corrections said in a statement that it was reviewing the report, but declined to comment further. “Without a full review of the report's findings and documentation supporting said findings, it would be a challenge to provide a comprehensive response at this time,” the statement said. The Justice Department noted that the state “cooperated fully” with the inquiry.

Federal officials placed blame on an outdated administrative system that partly relies on hand-delivered or physically-mailed documents, as well as the requirement that some data be manually inputted into systems. That means even people who are entitled to immediate release after sentencing were held behind bars for several additional weeks on average, they said.

Correction officials told the federal investigators that some of their release procedures were “cumbersome and time consuming,” but they still had no plans to develop a system that would allow them to receive digital documents from the courts, according to the probe.

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Louisiana has more than 36,000 people in prison for state felonies, according to state data, but capacity at state facilities is just under 19,000. As such, authorities pay local and private jails to house inmates on a per diem basis.

The overdetention costs taxpayers, with the bill in county jails running to an estimated $850,000 during the first four months of 2022 alone, the Justice Department said.

It added that state officials also do not track data relevant to overdetentions, preventing them from fully recognizing the cost of the alleged deficiencies, even though correction authorities were aware since a 2012 audit that “robust and consistent data tracking” is key to reducing overdetentions.

The Promise of Justice Initiative, a group that seeks to expose prosecutorial misconduct and improve prison conditions, said in a statement that it welcomed the Justice Department's findings. It is part of two class-action lawsuits against Louisiana that aim to halt overdetentions.

“We have known for a long time that the Louisiana DOC [department of corrections] is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody,” said Mercedes Montagnes, executive director of PJI. “We are grateful that the DOJ investigated this matter and we're hopeful that DOC will finally take its constitutional obligations seriously.”