We know how much is too much when we're eating โ going back for seconds, and thirds, of equal-portion sizes. Some don't stop with just one beer or drink. They continue, enjoying another and another and maybe a fifth or sixth.
The Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office gives weekly updates on how many people are housed in the parish jail. Many people stay there simply because they cannot post bail while awaiting pretrial hearings. Children are there because a new law says 17-year-olds accused of crimes can be treated as adults.
We've made progress since 2,187 people were there in 2014. That number fell to 1,133 by 2019. Officials have continued to bring that number down in recent years.
Things improved for youthful defendants in 2019 because state lawmakers passed the "Raise the Age" bill. That law meant we considered nonviolent 17-year-old offenders juveniles, not adults, and required them to serve time with other children in youth detention facilities โ not with adult offenders.
That was a significant change in the law. "Louisian has finally joined the rest of the country in treating 17-year-olds as children," the ถถา๕h Center for Children's Rights cheered.ฬ
Gov. Jeff Landry and the current Legislature decided they didn't like the idea of 17-year-old offenders being viewed as children by our legal system. They said if 17-year-olds do adult crimes, they should do adult time.
I get it. Really, I do.
But lowering the age to put 17-year-old kids behind bars with violent adults is a decision that shouldn't make sense to folks with common sense, compassion and empathy.
Reporter Missy Wilkinson of this newspaper recently wrote about jail overcrowding in ถถา๕h. I visited some of the same spaces she visited and saw some of what she saw.
"Cell blocks can house 60 inmates," she wrote. "But under a new law backed by Gov. Jeff Landry,ฬthe 16 youths in Block 2C are considered adults in court but must be separated from the 18-and-older population in jail."
