Lafourche jail plans on hold for BP

Due to the recent oil spill disaster and subsequent moratorium on offshore drilling, Lafourche Parish has postponed financial planning for a new jail facility.

“I think that until we can feel comfortable and get some sense as to where the local, regional, state and national economies are headed, we cannot with any degree of confidence move forward with a plan that we can bring to the public and expect the public to embrace,” Lafourche Parish Sheriff Craig Webre said.

District 4 Councilman Joe Fertitta agreed that the new facility has been put on hold due to financial constraints stemming from not only from the recent Deepwater Horizon disaster, but the economy, which was reaching new lows before the oil spill.

“I’m afraid that one day we may be mandated to do something,” Fertitta said. “There are a lot of different ideas that are kicked around. With the tax base and everything else, we are going to be really pressed to spend $50 million on a jail.”

January through March of 2010 was abysmal for sales tax collection in Lafourche Parish. Only $790,592 was received in February and $795,520 in March, a drop of 21.7 percent and 14.5 percent, respectively, from 2009 and the lowest totals since only $778,221 was collected in September 2005.

Through July, Lafourche has collected $6.8 million in sales tax in 2010, down 10 percent from $7.6 million through the first seven months in 2009. However, since the Deepwater Horizon explosion April 20, the parish saw a 2.9 percent increase in sales tax revenue compared to the same months – May, June and July – in 2009.

Webre said he hopes to be able to discuss a revised financing plan by early 2011.

“I’m hoping that it would be certainly early next year if not late this year,” Webre said. “I think the driving force, at least in my mind, is going to be the resolution of the BP well and some conclusion to the moratorium.”

Although it will be difficult to finalize a concrete plan to construct the new facility, Fertitta said he is willing to broach the subject.

“I’d be willing to discuss it any time,” he said. “It’s just we have to see how it plays out with this oil spill and our sales tax.”

The current jail, which was built in 1968 and expanded in 1977, has had crowding issues since 1995 and maintenance problems since 1992. The Lafourche Parish Council began planning the construction of a replacement jail March 1, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina derailed the progress, and an assessment of the current facility was completed by the National Institute of Corrections in February 2008.

“The [2005 Lafourche Parish Detention Center Improvement Subcommittee] stopped work after Hurricane Katrina but the issue has re-surfaced do (sic) to maintenance problems and the cost of housing inmates in other parishes,” the NIC assessment read.

Lafourche spent $1.8 million between January 2004 and June 2009 to house 3,394 inmates for 72,272 days out-of-parish because of overcrowding, according to the August 2009 Adult Detention Needs Assessment released by the parish.

What is more troubling is the escalation in the numbers since 2008. In the 18 months from January 2008 to June 2009, $662,871, or 37.6 percent of the money spent since 2004, was used to house out-of-parish inmates.

While some inmates are being sent to other parishes’ jails, others are being released back into the community. Law enforcement makes arrests for all crimes, but property crime offenders – car burglars, for example – are often released due to overcrowding.

“They will be incarcerated for sometimes a couple of days, sometimes a couple of weeks,” Webre said. “But it is inevitable that someone else who is charged with a more serious crime is going to come in and need that jail bed. The car burglar is going to get out and the rapist is going to stay.

“Habitual offenders who don’t respect the rights of other people and certainly don’t respect the law know that they have the lack of jail capacity in their favor.”

Excluding the recent oil spill and the cavalcade of issues that came with it, a new jail facility is the parish’s top priority.

“From the position that I hold and from where I sit, it is hands-down, without a doubt, the No. 1, the single biggest challenge for the parish,” Webre said. “The condition of the jail and the lack of sufficient bed capacity represent the weakest link in the criminal justice system.”

The BP oil spill and government-imposed moratorium on deepwater drilling has postponed discussions concerning a new jail facility in Lafourche Parish. Sheriff Crag Webre said he hopes to resume talks on the jail in 2011 if not later this year. FILE PHOTO