Closeup of a Caddo Parish Sheriff’s Office vehicle. Photo: Emilee Calametti / The Center Square
By Darren Svan | The Center Square
State lawmakers authorized a pretrial home incarceration program to alleviate overcrowding at the Caddo Parish Correctional Center but it is unclear how local public safety officials intend to manage it and how much it will cost.
Rep. Steven Jackson, D-Shreveport, sponsored House Bill 159, a pilot program that would release certain pre-trial defendants to home detention as an alternative to remaining in jail. Gov. Jeff Landry signed the bill into law in June.
Home detention usually means a form of electronic monitoring.
The act authorizes Caddo Parish Sheriff Henry Whitehorn to establish the pretrial home incarceration program and requires the sheriff to develop rules and regulations governing the program, according to the law.
“This is a bill that my sheriff asked me to do,” Jackson said on the House floor during debate. “This is one of several initiatives that he has to reduce the prison population … in Caddo Parish Correctional Center, and so he asked me to bring this bill to work to get those numbers down.”
With around 1,700 inmates, the facility is operating at 159% of its designed capacity. The correctional center was built 37 years ago and originally designed to house 1,070 inmates.
According to a press release issued by Jackson’s office, the state approved $80,000 for the program but it does not include details as to what the money would cover.
Whitehorn’s administrative chiefs scheduled a meeting with The Center Square to discuss implementation of the program but postponed that interview and haven’t offered a new date.
According to Jackson’s statements, collaboration and coordination will occur between the courts, the sheriff and the district attorney's office.
District Attorney James Stewart’s office said they are looking into The Center Square’s request for additional information.
A Caddo Parish Criminal Justice Task Force report, released in 2023, points to a number of factors contributing to overcrowding but highlights these key data findings: population growth has been driven largely by the pretrial population; the average length of stay for that population nearly doubled; and the typical amount of time it takes to resolve a court case more than doubled, the report said.
Caddo Parish’s new legislation relies on a similar program operating in Lafourche Parish.
The Lafourche Parish Pretrial Home Incarceration Program allows pretrial defendants who are not accused of violent or sex offenses, who are considered low-risk by the sheriff and who are approved by the court to be electronically monitored at home, according to state statute.
The annual cost of Lafourche Parish’s program was not publicly available.
During the bill’s debate, Jackson said, “If you're a violent offender … you won't qualify. But then there has to be an assessment done by those three entities or agencies before you can even be eligible to go through the program.”
Louisiana Revised Statutes 14:2 defines “violence” as crimes involving homicide, assault, sexual offenses, kidnapping, robbery, arson and more. The following crimes are generally not considered violent: property, drug, financial, public order and traffic.
Illegally possessing a firearm is considered nonviolent but using a firearm while committing another felony can be classified as violent, the law says. For convicted felons, possessing a firearm may be treated as a nonviolent weapons offense, whereas a convicted felon who has a prior crime of violence may face prosecution as a violent crime, the law said.
Jackson’s legislation includes an evaluation requirement, so lawmakers can expect a report at a future legislative session, he said during debate.