Louisiana Department of Corrections (Louisiana)

Our findings use the median, rather than the average, number of days by which people were overdetained by LDOC. This is because the average number of days by which people were overdetained is skewed due to outliers. 1 • LDOC’s failure to implement adequate policies and procedures ca uses systemic overdetentions. LDOC has failed to implement policies and procedures to ensure the timely release of individuals in its custody. LDOC does not have a uniform system fo r receiving necessary sentencing documents from the Clerks of Court and Sheriff’s offices. Nor does it establish a standard timeline for the delivery of those documents. LDOC maintains a time-consuming process for calculating release dates, which includes both manual calculations and automated processes using an antiquated data management system. And it lacks a standardized training or accountability process to ensure its staff have the ability to make sentencing computations accurately. These systemic deficiencies predictably result in delays and errors. Furthermore, LDOC effectively prevents itself from addressing these problems in an informed manner by failing to track overdetention-related data. LDOC’s failure to remedy these d eficiencies is the direct cause of its pervasive failure to release individuals from its custody on time. • LDOC is deliberately indifferent to the systemic overdetention of people in its custody. For more than ten years, LDOC has been on notice of its overdetention problem and has failed to take adequate measures to ensure timely releases of incarcerated individuals from its custody. A 2012 Six Sigma report as well as Legislative Audits conducted in 2017 and 2019 revealed severe, systemic delays in the processing of the necessary records from courts and local facilities, inefficient data management, poorly defined procedures, and a lack of training and oversight that have all contributed to a consistent pattern of overdetention. In addition, LDOC and its officials have faced numerous private lawsuits alerting them to on-going deficiencies in their processes. Still, LDOC has never implemented the reform that constitutional violations of this magnitude requires. The reform it has pursued has been too narrow to correct the system- wide causes of overdetention, and some undertakings have failed entirely, as in LDOC’s effort to implement a new Offender Management System in 2015. As a result of the systemic deficiencies identified in our investigation, thousands of individuals annually suffer the significant harm of having their freedom unconstitutionally denied by their overdetention i n LDOC’s custody. The COVID-19 pandemic drastically increased the h arms associated with overdetention, as the correctional environment carries an elevated risk of contracting COVID-19 and because of the general inability to maintain social distancing in such settings. Overdetention likewise carries numerous collateral harms to both incarcerated individuals and their families, including missed important family milestones, lost opportunities to say farewell to dying loved ones, lost or missed job opportunities, and diminished opportunities to fully re-integrate into society. 3 3 Alexander C. Tsai, MD, et al., Association Between Prison Crowding and COVID-19 Incidence Rates in Massachusetts Prisons, April 2020-January 2021, JAMA Internal Medicine (Aug. 9, 2021) (finding that there was a six times higher risk of contracting COVID-19 in the Massachusetts prisons as compared to the risk to the general public). 2 Consistent with CRIPA’s statutory requirements, this Findings Report and accompanying cover letter provide notice of the conditions that violate the constitutional rights of individua