Criminal
Justice Meltdown
In New Orleans?
By Bill Quigley
31 October, 2007
Countercurrents.org
“We are faced with the daily reality of an imminent collapse
of our criminal justice institutions.”
New Orleans Police
Chief Warren Riley
Some
say crime causes a city to be under siege; others say crime is the symptom
of a city under siege. Either way, New Orleans is in serious trouble.
Our criminal justice system is in unprecedented crisis.
Thursday there were four
murders in 24 hours in New Orleans. Over the weekend three more people
died from gunshots. So far this year, 170 people have been murdered
in New Orleans – a rate seven times the national average.
The District Attorney of
New Orleans just resigned at the insistence of the Mayor, the Attorney
General and several legislators. His office owes a group of discharged
employees a federal civil rights judgment of over $3 million –
and neither the City nor State was willing to pay unless he resigned.
There is high turnover in the office and thousands of people arrested
have been released because the office could not timely decide whether
to charge them with crimes or not. His resignation will not make New
Orleans any safer.
Katrina severely damaged
an already dysfunctional criminal justice in New Orleans. In fact, what
has occurred and is happening now in New Orleans is really neither “justice”
nor a “system.”
Before Katrina, New Orleans
averaged 1000 violent crimes each quarter. In the second quarter of
2007, New Orleans reported over 1300 violent crimes – despite
the fact that not many more than half the people of New Orleans are
back.
Black on black crime continues
to dominate. Of the 161 homicide victims in 2006, 131 were black men,
along with most of the suspects. Many victims and the suspects were
teenagers. About two-thirds of the deaths of 2006 have gone unsolved.
Police work out of trailers,
including the brass. During the summer, officers filled out paperwork
in their cars because there was no working air conditioning in their
temporary trailer offices. Not until spring 2007 was there a working
crime lab.
New Orleans has a post-Katrina
police force over 80% as large as before the storm – nearly half
are new officers. At the end of 2006, seven police officers were indicted
on murder charges – and then hailed as “heroes” by
many fellow officers as they reported to court. The police force is
supplemented by hundreds of National Guard members patrolling the city
in camouflaged humvees, and, on special occasions, members of the state
police as well.
The public defender system
is starting to improve but remains unable to represent all those facing
charges. Recently, Orleans Criminal Court Judge Arthur Hunter mailed
over 450 letters to attorneys in New Orleans ordering them to report
to his courtroom to start defending poor defendants. Most declined.
Jail is not the answer to
our crime problems because Louisiana already leads all 50 states in
the percentage of our people in jail, and New Orleans leads Louisiana.
A report on those in the New Orleans jail show that the majority are
awaiting trial and many of those in jail could easily be released. A
third are in on bonds of $5000 or less – the only reason they
remain in jail is because of their poverty. Over half are only facing
minor charges and nearly three-quarters have no other outstanding warrants
for their arrest.
Addressing crime takes a
functioning criminal justice system – and New Orleans is working
on that by increasing communication between the various agencies and
enacting some new programs. But, like the resignation of the District
Attorney, this is not likely to dramatically reduce crime.
Three recent reports help
show the way for New Orleans to improve the criminal system. They stress
earlier and better communication between the police and prosecutors;
a wider range of pre-trial release options; and greater use of alternatives
to prison.
The August 2007 report of
the Urban Institute, “Washed Away? Justice in New Orleans,”
documents past and present challenges for criminal justice. Available
online at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/411530_washed_away.pdf.
The VERA Institute of Justice
report, “Proposals for New Orleans’ Criminal Justice System:
Best Practices to Advance Public Safety and Justice” gives four
concrete ways that the system can be improved in the short run. Their
report is available at: http://www.vera.org/publication_pdf/399_770.pdf
The community-based Safe
Streets Strong Communities organization has put out several recommendations
about how New Orleans can fight crime without criminalizing or alienating
the people in the neighborhoods. See: http://www.safestreetsnola.org
But even if all these changes
are started, most leaders acknowledge what Criminal Judge Calvin Johnson,
who has presided in criminal court for nearly 20 years, says over and
over “We cannot arrest our way out of this problem.”
Crime is not an isolated
action. It is impossible to fix the crime problem if the rest of the
institutions that people rely on remain deeply broken.
The head of the local FBI
suggested to the Christian Science Monitor that criminals in New Orleans
“are products of an educational system that didn’t educate,
a state judicial system that failed to mete out consequences for criminal
activity, and an economic landscape devoid of meaningful jobs.”
Katrina and its aftermath
place enormous daily stresses on all people, particularly those already
disadvantaged by race, gender and class systems. Treatment facilities
report much more substance abuse, suicide and domestic violence. Yet,
the mental and physical health systems are only a shell of what they
were before the storm. Affordable housing is scarce and families are
separated. Public education is not working for the poorest children.
There is only so much the criminal justice system can do.
The number of doctors and
social workers and nurses who treat mental health is down dramatically.
Beds are down nearly 80%. Hospitals turn troubled people away every
day. Doctors report people who cannot be turned away are chemically
restrained on gurneys in the hall or kept in dimmed emergency waiting
rooms until they can be released. The system is backed up around the
state.
Even regular medical treatment
is a challenge for uninsured and insured both as many hospitals remain
closed. Drug and substance abuse treatment are scarce.
The extreme lack of affordable
rental housing means many older family members have not returned to
New Orleans. Many teenagers have returned on their own – living
alone or with other relatives and friends.
Public education for those
not in charter schools continues to be quite an uphill battle for the
children – often in highly policed public schools that illustrate
the school to prison pipeline.
Before Katrina, New Orleans
had the highest per capita murder rate in the nation a couple of times.
The police arrested few people for violent crimes and prosecutors and
judges and juries convicted less. Police, prosecutors and public defenders
were overworked and underpaid – often losing their most experienced
people to the suburbs and other cities where the work was calmer and
the pay better.
After Katrina it is all
worse. There is much more stress on the streets. There is much less
counseling and treatment available. There are fewer extended families
to provide a supportive environment. The police are less experienced.
The police do not communicate well with the prosecutors, who do not
work well with the victims and witnesses, while the judges feud with
the public defenders, and on and on.
After Katrina, there is
even less of a system and certainly less justice for everyone –
the public, victims, the accused, law enforcement and people working
in the institutions. Only when the criminal justice system is supported
by a good public education available to all children, sufficient affordable
housing for families, accessible healthcare (especially mental healthcare),
and jobs that pay living wages, can the community expect the crime rate
to go down.
The District Attorney has
resigned. But New Orleans and the Gulf Coast remain in serious trouble
on all fronts. Our criminal justice system is but one illustration of
our institutions melting down. For us, crime is not the cause of our
community being under siege; crime is the scream of our community under
siege.
Bill is a human rights lawyer
and professor at Loyola University New Orleans. You can reach him at
[email protected]
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