Why New Orleans' jail is overcrowded

• "There are 1,400 people in this jail, over the City Council 1,250 limit," she said Friday. "So, can you monitor every single person every day? No, we don't have the bodies to do that."

Catch up quick: Since the inmate escape was first reported Friday, Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson and her staff have adamantly underscored the jail's conditions, understaffing and what they describe as gross underfunding that doesn't allow for its proper maintenance.

• "Our current budget sits at about $68 million," OPSO CFO Bianca Brown said Friday evening. "This size facility, it really should have a $150 million budget, easily. The budget that we have? It doesn't support what we need. I've laid out the numbers. You see it's critical."

How it works: The New Orleans jail, which opened in 2015 on the edge of Interstate 10 near Broad Street, is where people who have not made bail are held.

• The Orleans Parish Sheriff's Office is charged with managing the jail and overseeing its inmates.
• If convicted, inmates move out of OPSO custody and into a state prison.
• Its population hit a historic low of 720 inmates in 2021, but the number has been steadily increasing since then. Explore the data.

Overcrowding at the jail didn't happen overnight, and officials have been wrestling with the issue for at least a year.

• But the 2019 ordinance that set its cap at 1,250 doesn't have clear steps for what happens now that it's overfull.
• Last year, when The Times-Picayune asked Attorney General Liz Murrill about possible solutions, she said, "I think people should stop committing crimes in New Orleans and that would alleviate the crisis."

What they're saying: Much of Gov. Jeff Landry's Sunday evening press conference was spent pointing a finger at what he described as a "progressive criminal justice system" that allows offenders too much leniency while court cases move too slowly.

• Cases for nine of the 10 escaped inmates, Landry's office says, "are stuck in some pre-trial posture and have been for years."
• One of the inmates, Derrick Groves, has been waiting on sentencing for a manslaughter case since October 2024, Landry's office says.

The other side: Orleans Parish District Attorney Jason Williams rejected Landry's suggestions that his office isn't doing its part to keep cases moving, instead noting that New Orleans has an 85% conviction rate for murder cases.

• Williams also pointed to post-pandemic delays at the courthouse and in processing evidence, as well as delays by the state Department of Corrections in not moving inmates through to its custody quickly enough.
• He also said OPSO has failed to provide evidence and reports to back up additional charges stemming from actions within the jail, an issue Williams says has gone on for "years."
• "It is frustrating that the governor would not have simply called me over the weekend. My phone was on," Williams said. "To suggest that justice is not being served because of the volume of cases we have, that is factually dishonest."

Zoom in: Activists for years have also advocated against the cash bail system. They say it leads to an increased jail population simply because some people, who have not yet been convicted of any crimes, can't afford the fees associated with it.

• A 2019 report from the Vera Institute, for example, argues that bail reforms could decrease the jail population by more than half.

Worth noting: The office of Chief Criminal District Judge Tracey Flemings-Davillier did not immediately respond to requests for comment Monday.

Editor's note: This story has been corrected to reflect that the Orleans Justice Center opened in 2015 (not 2019).