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Nonprofits Suggest N.O. Legal Reforms;
Minor Crimes Don't Need Jail, They Say
June 13, 2007
The Times-Picayune
By Laura Maggi
New Orleans needs to launch innovative efforts to avoid putting minor offenders in jail, while also improving the relationship between police and prosecutors to ensure that serious criminals are prosecuted, outside experts told a City Council committee on Tuesday.
Echoing a local report released this week, experts from the Vera Institute of Justice and the Center for Court Innovation said law enforcement officials are now targeting low-level offenders. Instead, officials should try to find new sentencing alternatives or different court programs to handle people accused of these crimes.
"There are a whole host of sanctions between nothing and being in jail," Vera Institute Director Michael Jacobson said, adding that putting low-level offenders in jail can make them more prone to keep breaking the law instead of acting as a deterrent.
Vera Institute staff members have come to New Orleans three times in the past six months to talk with local officials about ways to improve the criminal justice system. On Tuesday, they recommended changes to be made in the next year.
Jacobson said the city should begin assessing a group of people who are arrested to develop a methodology to determine who poses the most serious risk to the public. Offenders who aren't public-safety risks should be released pending trial, perhaps with more services or outside monitoring.
The city and the court system also should look to expand its use of drug courts and the mental health court run by Judge Calvin Johnson, the report said.
At the same time, the city should develop a new model to handle municipal offenders: people arrested for crimes ranging from domestic violence to public drunkenness, the report concluded. Most people arrested for municipal crimes either are slapped with a fine or end up serving a sentence in jail, Jacobson said. Some defendants who can't afford a fine end up in jail after they don't pay, he said.
Another expert said some states have developed "community courts" that find more meaningful ways to sanction low-level offenders, such as community service, while also offering services such as drug treatment or job training. In some case, offenders can be required to meet with a panel of victims of a particular type of crime -- such a graffiti -- to hear why it is detrimental to a local neighborhood, said Christopher Watler, deputy director of the Center for Court Innovation, a nonprofit group in New York.
A report by the Metropolitan Crime Commission, a New Orleans watchdog group, found that more than 50 percent of the arrests made by New Orleans police officers in the first quarter were for municipal or traffic offenses. The Vera report agreed with the commission's conclusions that the police need to start writing citations to such offenders in lieu of arresting them so that more resources can be devoted to violent and serious crime.
The Vera Institute report also made suggestions on how to improve cooperation between the Police Department and District Attorney Eddie Jordan's office. Though both agencies have been trying to collaborate more intensely, the group suggested that the two agencies adopt a system that requires arresting officers and prosecutors to meet within 24 hours after an arrest. They also should develop a system to require case conferences between the police and assistant district attorneys within six days after an arrest, which would force prosecutors to decide more quickly whether to press charges against suspects.
This kind of early cooperation would help improve the quality of cases brought to court while "weeding out" the weak ones early on.
City Councilwoman Shelley Midura said the council should embrace the report's suggestions. The two other members of the Criminal Justice Committee -- Oliver Thomas and James Carter -- agreed to send the report on for the full council's consideration.
"We have concrete steps we can take to improve our system," Midura said.
However, Jacobson did note that most of the recommendations would require startup financing. "The trick is to squeeze money out of the systems and reinvest in other areas," he said.
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