After 10 inmates broke out of the Orleans Parish jail earlier this month, law enforcement agencies across the state began pointing the finger at one another.
Gov. Jeff Landry blamed the District Attorney’s Office for delays in their cases being prosecuted. D.A. Jason Williams blamed the sheriff’s office for its slow response to his request for the evidence he needed to prosecute them. And Sheriff Susan Hutson blamed jail workers and those outside who were helping the inmates.
So, who is really responsible? And how common is this type of law enforcement infighting?
Mac Muir, a leading expert on police accountability and the former executive director of the Community Police Review Agency in Oakland, California, joined Louisiana Considered to discuss the situation.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
DIANE MACK: As we mentioned so far, there has been a lot of finger-pointing going on here. As we mentioned, no one wants to take the blame for the jailbreak, but according to your opinion, who really has the most responsibility here?
MAC MUIR: I think ultimately we'll have to zoom out and look at the specific facts of what occurred, and that's gonna be the value of an investigation that comes in at a later point that is objective, that does not have politics involved, and can really look at what decisions were made throughout the last few years that might have led to this point.
What's really important is that there's a broader look at public safety and how it can be improved, and that's the opportunity that arises here outside of a crisis.
MACK: As we noted, Gov. Landry blamed the fact that so many inmates had been waiting in the jail for too long as their cases were delayed. But when he was attorney general, did he have any power to move these cases along? Could he have done anything here?
MUIR: I think you could say so. I think that there's a serious challenge with backlogs in the criminal justice system and at the same time, it's gonna depend on how the courts are moving and that's gonna have to be reviewed retroactively, and look at what could have been done differently. I think we're still in the learning process, figuring out what that is.
MACK: You've studied the ways that inmates’ cases get backlogged. What kinds of effects does that typically have when inmates have been waiting for trials and end up spending more than a year in jails? And what are some of the main causes of these delays?
MUIR: Well, first you see tremendous harm. You see inefficiency in government. You see a waste of taxpayer dollars. You see families that are burdened with folks who are incarcerated for longer than they need to be. And you see jail systems that have backlogs and prison systems that have backlogs because cases aren't moving forward. The cost of human harm to the people involved. The cause is financial harm to the taxpayer. And the backlogs can be created in a number of different ways. Oftentimes, you don't have enough courts, you don't have enough prosecutors, and we've found in various jurisdictions that it's gonna depend on a prosecutor's ability to move forward with a case and do so expeditiously and be well-resourced. So, you can have a lot of finger-pointing when there's different folks who might be able to move forward. But it all comes down to assessing your resources and prioritization.
MACK: What have you made of the city's response so far as they continue to look for inmates and begin arresting those accused of assisting the fugitives? What's the likelihood they catch all 10?
MUIR: The law enforcement response. Now, you've seen hundreds of officers deployed across the area, and at the same time, there's no way to know. You can see that there's a serious issue of trust in New Orleans and across the state. That's hampering the ability for law enforcement to capture the fugitives.
You've seen in New Orleans there's very low, low trust in law enforcement and folks vocally saying, “You're suddenly here now. You weren't here before and there was low trust. Why should we be helping you now?” And it speaks to the broader issues of accountability and transparency, both in Louisiana and across the country, where in a healthy criminal justice system, you're gonna have folks wanna work with the police and have the expectation that it'll be fair and just, and when that trust is low, crises like these can occur.
MACK: And of course, Sheriff Susan Hutson has already halted her reelection campaign. Do you think this marks the end of her career as a leading agent of law enforcement? Is there any coming back from this?
MUIR: I think so, I think that you can come back from this. I think that ultimately, there's an ebb and flow in the conversation and Susan Hutson's somebody with serious experience in law enforcement and in police accountability. So, it'll be a matter of time and hopefully we'll find out very clearly what went wrong and be able to improve it. And that's really the purpose of the transparency that should be occurring, is that by the end of this, the finger-pointing, we'll be able to stop and we'll know exactly where the issues occurred.
MACK: Have you studied jailbreaks or similar events in other cities? What have you seen when it comes to law enforcement response? How does it compare?
MUIR: I certainly can't say that. I think the focus is on police accountability on our end and really looking at when there is an investigation that occurs, is it transparent? Are bad actors or negligent actors in this case held accountable? I can't see recent comparisons for what's gone on here in New Orleans–it's quite the spectacle.
MACK: What do you think are the main changes that will need to be made to the law enforcement offices in New Orleans in order to prevent something like this from happening again?
MUIR: Well, what you're gonna need to see is additional transparency across the board, because the fact that you can have finger-pointing at the beginning of an incident like this speaks to unknowns previously. So, there'll need to be a serious community conversation driven by the communities that are most impacted by policing, and the folks who are involved in the management of the jail to say, “What happened here? How it can be prevented again?” I think you're seeing what appeared to be serious issues in terms of the security of the jail, but we will learn more as additional evidence is gathered.
