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CENTER ON JUVENILE AND CRIMINAL JUSTICE PRESS ROOM | |
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| Center on Juvenile and Criminal Justice, 54 Dore Street, San Francisco, CA 94103 | Tel: (415) 621-5661 | Fax: (415) 621-5466 |
Lafayette's growth would be even more appealing if it brought the money needed to deal with accompanying demands. Unfortunately, that doesn't often happen. We have seen numerous examples of strong growth and dwindling resources. The latest is a parish jail that, about a week ago, had 37 more inmates than it had beds.
That overload was with 150 portable beds jammed in place, according to Director Rob Reardon.
The center has not only outgrown its normal prisoner capacity. It also has outgrown the funding mechanism set up when it was new, shiny and totally capable of handling the prisoner load.
There is a closely related problem for which, like so many other things, Lafayette needs money. Before being incarcerated, you generally have to go to court. Like the jail, the Lafayette Parish Court House is showing signs of age, and there is talk of building a new one. And on it goes.
We need roads and drainage. The Cajundome is rapidly deteriorating. We have so many temporary buildings at our schools that they look like used trailer lots. The jail is filling up, and the courthouse soon may be falling down.
When Reardon took over as director, he brought to the jail a knowledge of alternatives to incarceration. They have produced good results, but the jail's growth, possibly already too far along, was not adequately slowed down. Now it is a question of building a new jail, remodeling or making it awhile longer with too many people in too small quarters.
Whatever we end up with, we urge that the use of effective alternatives to incarceration be continued and increased, using new approaches that are constantly being developed. Reardon already has made the departure from Louisiana's old and once iron-clad rule for imprisonment: lock the door and throw away the key.
Alternative approaches now are acceptable in the state and constantly growing more numerous here and around the country. Among the alternatives to help with the local crowding, the Sheriff's Office has stopped accepting people facing minor traffic charges, has stopped housing most federal inmates and has relied more on day-reporting and home-detention programs for nonviolent offenders. Another proven approach is routing most of the nonviolent, drug-involved criminals into drug treatment in lieu of prison.
Columbia University recently completed a study that concludes alternatives to incarceration can save prisons in New York millions of dollars. The problems here go beyond crowding. There are other problems that come with age. We would like to see a new, advanced, state-of-the-art facility replace the current, inadequate jail. Whether or not the jail is replaced or only renovated, however, stepped-up use of alternatives to incarceration will serve the community well and be effective in controlling costs and slowing deterioration.
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