Starting August 1st, prisons, jails and other correctional facilities will be required to notify the public whenever a violent inmate is inadvertently let out. That’s due to a new law Governor Landry signed last month that was authored by New Orleans Representative Mandie Landry, who said there had been several instances when it took hours for these facilities to issue bulletins about escaped inmates.
“There definitely was not notification fast enough, and that’s why we needed this,” Landry explained.
While it was not an inadvertent release, Landry was prompted to author the bill by last year’s jailbreak at the Orleans Parish Jail, in which the public wasn’t notified until about ten hours after ten inmates broke free. Landry wanted to be sure whatever was in her bill was something that would be able to be adhered to.
“I worked pretty closely with the Sheriff’s Association on this, to make sure the protocol is something that they were able to do and that adequately addressed the situation,” Landry said.
For instance, Landry offered an amendment to narrow the scope of her bill, limiting the notification requirement to the inadvertent release of an inmate charged with or convicted of a violent crime.
“If someone’s just there on a check hiding charge, maybe we don’t need to call in the calvary. But if we have someone who is sitting there awaiting murder charges, we need to make sure the public knows right away,” Landry said.
Landry’s bill sailed through the legislature without a dissenting vote at any stage.