By Sam Karlin
BATON ROUGE — Proponents of criminal justice reform are confident the Louisiana Legislature will pass a series of bills this spring that the governor maintains would reduce the state’s prison population by 13 percent and save taxpayers $305 million over the next 10 years.
Even with the state’s District Attorneys Association issuing a lengthy and sharp rebuttal to most of the ideas, and an atmosphere of divisiveness in the Capitol, several lawmakers believe this could be the year the state sheds its title as prison capital of the U.S., which in turn makes it the prison capital of the world.
LSU Manship School Statehouse Bureau 