THE hard thing about criminal-justice reform is that it involves criminals, who do not always behave as they should. Yet there are also costs to ignoring reform, measured in ruined lives, body bags and dollars and cents.
That was the conundrum faced by Louisiana when a group of Republican and Democratic legislators passed reforms intended to push the state off the top spot on some less-than-desirable charts. Start with incarceration rates. Louisiana has long tried to jail its way to public safety. The state imprisons its citizens at about twice the American average, which is an achievement. America’s incarceration rate is an outlier in the rich world, being about five times higher than Britain’s (which is more punitive than many European neighbours).
All that locking up and throwing away of keys has not made Louisiana safer. The state’s murder rate is America’s highest. Nor does the state, one of the poorest in...Continue reading
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