In most other states and cities, prisoners and parolees marked for immediate release are typically processed within hours. But in Louisiana, the problem known as “overdetention” is endemic, often occurring without explanation, apology or compensation.
Johnny Traweek, who was held in a Louisiana prison for 20 days past his release date, outside his apartment in McAllen, Texas, Oct. 29, 2022.
Traweek’s case was neither atypical nor the worst of its kind: Roughly 200 inmates are held beyond their legal release dates on any given month in Louisiana, amounting to 2,000 to 2,500 of the 12,000 to 16,000 prisoners freed each year. The average length of additional time was around 44 days in 2019, according to internal state corrections data obtained by lawyers for inmates — and until recently, the department’s public hotline warned families that the wait could be as long as 90 days.
In December 2020, the Justice Department opened an investigation into the practices the state used to determine the release of its prisoners, particularly those, like Traweek, who remained behind bars despite being eligible for immediate release. The investigation, according to people with knowledge of the situation, is expected to find widespread violations of a federal law that guarantees imprisoned people their “rights, privileges or immunities.
A spokesperson for Louisiana’s corrections department declined to discuss overdetention or even provide basic information about how the system operates and declined to respond to specific claims by inmates, citing the continuing litigation. A judge freed Brian Humphrey from the jail in Bossier Parish in northwest Louisiana on April 16, 2019, after he had served three years for an offense related to assault. He prepared to leave that night. Instead, he languished.
There are few incentives for rushing an inmate out the door, especially if the state is picking up the tab: Reimbursement rates for state prisoners are a significant source of income in the parishes, and a handful of parish facilities have eagerly accepted migrants detained at the border, which offers even higher federal reimbursement rates.
She is constantly consulting a photograph on her phone. A cheat sheet she put together, written in fastidious longhand, lists all the relevant state laws and their dates of passage. It covers a full page of graph paper.
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