Katrina's Jails (Blog #10)

In the aftermath of Katrina, New Orleans was still torn apart, even 3 months later. While locals came back to salvage what they could from the disaster and try to start up living there again, there has been hesitance to rebuild the city. Some people question if New Orleans is worth saving and because of that they didn't start rebuilding it to it's former glory very hastily. It took over a year for the city to start promoting tourism and events in it. It's port was resurrected shortly after the storm, having been the US's largest port and most of the damage being water and flood damage, the port was easy to fix.

After locals started coming back and living in New Orleans, the jail system started to become a bit of a joke. Arresting and arraignment rates went through the roof and the local jail became the one of the largest jails in the country in terms of inmates passing through it to court dates or other prisons. It has been called the jail capital of the country. Over 60,000 people pass through these jails a year with an average stay of 20days. Many of these people were thrown into jail because of small charges, traffic violations and municipal crimes, or awaiting trial.

The injustice of this is apparent I believe. To get arrested for a parking ticket seems ridiculous. Jailers get paid by the prisoner and as such, they set out to bring as many people through the jail as possible. Due to the state the New Orleans was left in, locals do not have the resources to fight such a corrupt way of sentencing. The police take advantage of this and jail all those that they can.

This thought process really marginalizes the people it is affecting. People are treated like items and money rather than the humans that they are. They surrender to the idea that they are worthless and start an endless cycle of jail or arrests, but that's an entirely different blog topic. With the destruction that Katrina caused the jails, they have become incredibly inhospitable and dehumanize the prisoners being housed in them. Conditions like this turn law abiding citizens into criminals by convincing them they are an incapable of change.

The struggle for justice from this situation is hard fought. the guards that treat these prisoners this way are invisible because no one really can identify them as more than "A guard." Guards get away with these acts because there is no accountability for their actions. Through miscommunication the guards aren't "responsible" and not bothered by some protocols. With the history of how the prisoners were treated in New Orleans and how the government and police force treated people during the "evacuation" it's not surprising that these guards don't see repercussions.