Criminal Justice
The criminal justice problems in Louisiana are so overwhelming and persistent that there is a definite need for more legal resources in this area. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the country, prison conditions are horrendous, and police abuses are widespread. Indigent defendants have virtually no rights, and generally very poor representation. The criminal justice system is still in utter disrepair nearly two years after Katrina hit. Citizens are presumed innocent under our Constitution, but in Louisiana indigent defendants are not receiving anything close to constitutionally adequate representation.
In early October 2005, Dr. Louis X. Washington, Sr. a life-long senior African-American New Orleans resident commented “I’ve never seen whites and blacks get along so well in this city; everybody’s helping out everybody. It won’t last. Just wait until more of us come home.” Dr. Washington’s commentary was prophetic and, indeed, the racial tensions that have been tolerated for years in the Greater New Orleans community returned quickly. Jefferson and St. Tammany Parish Sheriffs made national news with their comments concerning racial profiling. And in Orleans Parish, the crime problem that was often blamed on public housing has not yet subsided, even though public housing residents have been prohibited from returning to the city. In the Greater New Orleans community, citizens segregate to discuss race and the conversations are often vitriolic. It is time to listen, and the “Listen Without Prejudice.” LJI will facilitate these conversations throughout the community, in safe spaces with our ministerial partners, to share statistics on race and recovery and to discuss how the community can work long term toward resolution of these race tensions.
Those conversations were never so important as now in Jena, Louisiana, where the Jena 6, six young African-American men, are caught in a struggle between engrained racism in a tiny town in the deep south, a shaky Criminal Justice system, and nationwide media attention that has recently brought in hundreds of thousands of protestors, some with big names like Al Sharpton and the Reverend Jesse Jackson. LJI has been involved in coordinating the legal team for the Jena 6, as well as assisting the families in their media campaign. LJI has helped coordinated the beginning in a series of anti-racism trainings in the public schools in Jena, as part of our larger conversations on race, recovery and criminal justice.
