More with less

Your Orleans Parish Prison system, that your Mayor says we can't afford to fix.

NEW ORLEANS - A federal court hearing regarding the pending federal consent decree over the Orleans Parish Prison complex began Monday with testimony from a former inmate who described being sexually assaulted and severely beaten.

The inmate talked of being hog-tied, beaten with a mop handle and bucket, doused in urine and more.

“If I had screamed, ‘Guard, guard, guard, help me,’ I would have perished that night,” he said.

His testimony is part of a fairness hearing in federal court. A judge is weighing whether to accept the proposed consent decree, as agreed upon by the Southern Poverty Law Center, the U.S. Justice Department and Sheriff Marlin Gusman.

Last week, the Mayor called an "emergency meeting" of City Council to decry the sudden shocking expense of a federal consent decree he has known about for many many months.

Options for each varied widely: anywhere from 100-300 city workers laid off, furloughs between 15 to 30 days for all city employees, and a cut to the operating budget, which could range from 6 - 45 percent cut.

"Put simply, it does not make sense to lay off or furlough police officers and firefighters, so we can hire more prison guards and pay them higher salaries," Landrieu said.

I don't mean to be flip about the possibility of furloughing police and firefighters. I don't want the city to do this and I, frankly, think the Mayor is overstating the consequences anyway.  But, if we are to accept the options he lays out, he seems to be saying that we'll have to spend less money on putting people in the unconstitutional torture chamber while we're busy cleaning it up.  Somehow that just seems like common sense.

I mean, why spend all that money simply moving the criminal activity around?

Inmates at the now-shuttered House of Detention in Orleans Parish didn't have to forgo all of their vices, according to videotapes aired during a federal court hearing Tuesday over a proposed consent decree to govern jail reforms in the parish.

One inmate is seen shooting up heroin, while others freely snort drugs behind bars and chat on cell phones. Another inmate releases bullets from a long-barreled handgun onto the ground inside the jail, behind bars.

In another video, an Orleans Parish jail inmate went out on the town in the French Quarter, chatting up cops and cruising down Bourbon Street. How he got there remains uncertain.

Still, in the wake of a stimulating "Entrepreneur Week" here in our booming idea town, you'd think our pro-"innovation" Mayor would suggest some sort of cutting edge public-private partnership that could allow the prison to "do more with less."  The obvious move would be to let Gusman take a cut of all the drug sales that take place under his roof.  But I get the feeling Mitch doesn't want to grant the Sheriff yet another independent revenue stream.

Update: The Mayor released a statement this afternoon about the OPP videos. 

The videotape is outrageous. I have never seen anything like it.
 
“How can we make our city safe when prisoners are coming and going from jail as they please, walking freely on the streets and then returning to jail with heroin, cocaine, and loaded weapons?
“This tape was hidden away from the public in a safe in the Sheriff's Office and only came to light when the City's legal team fought to uncover it.

“In light of this disturbing evidence, we again request the Department of Justice join us in immediately putting a federal receiver in place to manage the jail.  It is now clearer than ever that the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office is not keeping the prison secure and our city safe.  

“The people of the city are investing over $226 million to build new prison facilities and over $30 million each year in the taxpayer money to operate the jail.  I cannot in good conscience cut vital services or raise taxes to put even more money into an office where waste, fraud, and abuse run rampant. The only way to fix the problem is to put a federal receiver in place that will run a safe and secure jail in a financially responsible way.”

If by "a federal receiver" the Mayor envisions a federal purse as well, he's not wrong at all.  Furthermore if the eventual result of Mitch's temper tantrum is a new federal funding stream for prison reform, then this will all have been well worth the effort.

I don't think it will work out that way, though.