The U.S. Justice Department has launched a probe into practices within the Louisiana Department of Corrections that critics say have kept inmates behind bars long past their release dates.
The Special Litigation Section of the Justice Department’s Civil Rights Division is conducting the statewide probe into prisoner release procedures, according to a Dec. 3 news release. Federal officials have not reached any conclusions about Louisiana prison practices, the news release said, but compliance with the federal Civil Rights of Institutionalized Persons Act (CRIPA) will be examined by investigators.
“The department has conducted CRIPA investigations of many correctional systems, and where violations have been found, the resulting settlement agreements have led to important reforms,” the Justice Department’s statement said.
Louisiana corrections officials have pledged to comply with the federal investigators’ directives.
“The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DOC) looks forward to fully cooperating with the U.S. Department of Justice,” Ken Pastorick, the DOC’s spokesman, said in an email to the Louisiana Record. “The DOC takes this very seriously and will assist in whatever way necessary in this investigation.”
The federal probe comes in the wake of lawsuits filed by New Orleans attorney William Most. In October, the Fifth Circuit Court of Appeals found that the conduct of corrections officials recorded in phone conversations was “objectively unreasonable” and unworthy of qualified immunity.
One prison official said in a recorded conversation that judges have no say in the timing of prisoner releases and that, “Anyone who messes with me gets more time,” according to Most’s law firm.
The Fifth Circuit also found in the case of Ellis Ray Hicks v. Department of Public Safety & Corrections that the DOC’s secretary, James LeBlanc, could be held liable for not moving to release prisoners after being sentenced to time served.
The result of the DOC’s conduct has been “missed holidays, missed birthdays, missed Christmases, missed Thanksgivings, family time that these people will never get back,” Most said in a prepared statement earlier this month.