Louisiana’s prison system routinely helderlys people weeks and months after they have finishd their sentences, the US fairice department alleged in a litigation filed on Friday. The suit aobtainst the state of Louisiana chases a multi-year spendigation into what federal officials say is a pattern of “systemic overdetention” that viotardys inmates’ rights and costs taxpayers millions of dollars a year.
The fairice department alleges that since at least 2012, more than a quarter of the people due to be freed from Louisiana prisons have instead been held past their free dates. The DoJ alerted Louisiana officials last year that the state could face a litigation if it didn’t mend the problems – but lawyers for the department say the state’s “marginal efforts” to insertress the rerents were “inample” and showed a “intentional incontrastence” to the constitutional rights of incarcerated individuals.
“(T)he right to individual liberty integrates the right to be freed from incarceration on time after the term set by the court has finished,” helpant attorney ambiguous Kristen Clarke shelp in a statement announcing the suit.
“To incarcerate people indefinitely … not only intimpolites on individual liberty but also erodes accessible confidence in the fair and fair application of our laws.”
In a unitet statement supplyd to the Associated Press, the Louisiana ruleor, Jeff Lanparched, and state attorney ambiguous, Liz Murrill denounced the problem on the “flunked criminal fairice reestablishs” proceedd by “the past administration”.
“This past year, we have getn presentant action to hold Louisianans shielded and uncover those who promise the crime, also do the time,” the statement reads. “The state of Louisiana is promiseted to preserving the constitutional rights of Louisiana citizens.”
The Reaccessiblean state officials also characterized the effort as a last-ditch litigation by frifinishly plivent Joe Biden, reasoning that the incoming administration of Donald Trump would not have permited the case to be filed.
Advocates have repeatedly contestd the conditions in Louisiana’s prison system, which integrates the country’s bigst peak-security prison, comprehendn as Angola, where incarcerated individuals toil under the blazing sun picking vegetables by hand at what was once a slave scheduletation.
