Landry’s prison – After Gov. Jeff Landry pushed Louisiana away from earlier sentencing and parole reforms, his administration is now asking lawmakers for sizable increases in corrections spending—more prison beds, higher payments to local jails, and millions for inmate medical
The day after a teenager was killed and five people were injured at the Mall of Louisiana last month, Gov. Jeff Landry went on the offensive. At a news conference in Baton Rouge, he derided what he called “hug-a-thug” policies and demanded harsher punishment for violent minors.
“I’m done with them. It doesn’t matter how old they are,” Landry, a Republican, said. “We’ve got 18,000 acres at Angola — if it was up to me, I would send them all there for the rest of their lives.”
It was a statement meant to land hard. But it also set the tone for where Louisiana lawmakers may be headed financially: back toward prison expansion and rising medical bills, as a result of changes to sentencing and parole that critics say have already tightened the state’s fiscal squeeze.
Landry’s move to increase time served came soon after he took office. In 2024. he secured a package of tough-on-crime bills that. according to a Landry spokesperson at the time. would be fiscally manageable because “less crime means greater economic opportunity for everyone.” Civil rights groups and incarceration experts had warned those reforms would swell the prison population and push Louisiana toward financial disaster.
Two years later, Landry’s proposed corrections budget suggests those fears are no longer theoretical. The governor is seeking $798 million for corrections. a 9% increase from the inflation-adjusted amount spent in fiscal year 2024—the last budget passed before his tenure. Lawmakers are expected to pass the budget by June 1.
For supporters of Landry’s approach. the logic is straightforward: longer sentences and fewer ways to reduce time behind bars should deter crime and keep dangerous people confined. For those tracking the costs, the picture is bleaker. ProPublica and Verite News have spent more than two years investigating how Landry’s policies have reshaped Louisiana’s criminal justice system. including what happens when fewer prisoners get paroled and fewer are released through medical pathways.
Under Landry, the number of prisoners paroled has fallen to its lowest point in 20 years. One driver cited in the investigation is a law Landry signed that cedes much of the parole board’s power to a computerized algorithm.
Meanwhile, the prison population is expected to shift older and sicker. The reason, as described in the investigation, is that Louisiana eliminated medical parole—meaning prisoners who might previously have left earlier due to serious health conditions are staying longer.
Landry also changed how the justice system treats violent youth. The governor pushed a law that lowered the age at which defendants are treated as adults from 18 to 17. arguing it was meant to respond to an “epidemic of violent crime committed by minors.” But ProPublica and Verite News found that 69% of 17-year-olds in three of Louisiana’s largest parishes were arrested for offenses Louisiana law does not consider violent crimes.
Experts say the full financial impact may not arrive all at once. The Crime and Justice Institute. a Boston-based nonpartisan public-safety research organization. predicts that by 2034 Landry’s rollback of inmates’ ability to shave time off their sentences through good behavior will double the size of Louisiana’s prison population. double the number of nonviolent offenders held. and cost an estimated $2 billion for new prisons.
A key sign of where those future costs are already showing up is the immediate squeeze on capacity—and the budget requests required to keep the system running.
In the two years since Landry took office. the number of state prisoners increased by about 8%. and his budget indicates that number will continue to rise. The administration is asking for 688 additional beds at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, Louisiana’s largest prison. That expansion would require hiring 150 correctional officers.
A corrections department spokesperson said the increased capacity is necessary because, under the previous administration, “beds were significantly decreased, correctional officer positions were cut, facilities closed, and funding [was] eliminated.”
This is happening after earlier gains. In 2017. a bipartisan coalition of Louisiana legislators passed a package of bills designed to reduce nonviolent offenders behind bars. and the nation-leading prison population fell. By 2021. the number of nonviolent offenders in state prisons and jails dropped by 55%. and the overall prison population by 26%. according to the U.S. Department of Justice.
That downward trend reversed. After years of decline—including a period when the coronavirus pandemic and court delays affected incarceration—Louisiana’s prison population began climbing again in 2022 as courts reopened and crime rates rose. The investigation says the increase continued under Landry’s rollbacks.
Then, in early 2024, Landry signed bills that repealed most of those prior reforms. The changes included eliminating parole for anyone convicted of a crime committed after Aug. 1, 2024, and requiring prisoners to serve at least 85% of their sentences before they can reduce their time through good behavior. Eliminating parole also got rid of medical parole. and added restrictions were placed on medical furlough for severely ill or injured inmates.
The rising prison population is not staying inside state facilities. Louisiana has long relied heavily on local jails. and the investigation describes how pressure has spilled into the system where more than half of the state’s inmates are held. Landry is asking the legislature for an additional $17 million to increase the rate paid to local sheriffs to house state inmates by $3 per day. from $26 to $29.
Some lawmakers and prison reform advocates say there are signs the Department of Corrections is already recalculating its strategy. State Rep. Mandie Landry. a Democrat from New Orleans (no relation to the governor). said corrections department officials asked her to sponsor a bill allowing prisoners who earn an associate’s degree to shave 90 days off their sentences. She called it “a move in the right direction. ” adding. “I think they’re realizing that what the legislature did a few years ago is going to explode into a nightmare in prison.” The legislature passed the bipartisan bill in April.
A corrections department spokesperson declined to respond to questions about the impact of Landry’s policies on the prison population and corrections budget. how those policies are affecting inmate medical care. and whether the department is seeking to gradually reverse any of Landry’s policies. Landry’s spokesperson also did not respond to requests for comment.
The financial strain isn’t just about beds. It’s about health care—an area where the system has already faced lawsuits and scrutiny.
Landry’s proposal includes more money for inmate medical care: an additional $14.3 million for the next fiscal year, which begins in July. The administration is also asking for an additional $33 million for the current fiscal year to cover medical care, overtime and supplies.
The need for those funds is tied to what happens when parole—especially medical parole—disappears. Bruce Reilly. deputy director of Voice of the Experienced. a New Orleans nonprofit that advocates for the rights of incarcerated people. said the loss of parole and the inability to reduce sentences through good behavior means inmates spend more time behind bars. That extra time, he said, will create an older and sicker prison population.
The investigation notes that older prisoners were already increasing before Landry. in part because of lengthy sentences secured in the 1980s to 2000s by previous New Orleans district attorneys. Since Landry took office in 2024, the population of prisoners over 70 has risen by 28%, while the overall prison population rose by 8%.
ProPublica and Verite News reported in 2024 allegations of unconstitutional medical care provided to inmates being held in Angola’s medical ward. James Austin. a national corrections policy expert. said a medical system that has struggled to care for its most vulnerable “will only worsen” under the strain of a rapidly expanding and aging population.
The legal fight over Angola’s medical care has also continued. In March. a federal appeals court threw out a lower-court order that would have required a court-appointed team to oversee medical care at Angola. The appeals court described the proposed remedy as “micromanagement,” saying it violated the federal Prison Litigation Reform Act. The case was sent back to the lower court.
For years, as both attorney general and governor, Landry has defended Angola’s healthcare system, arguing inmates are entitled only to “adequate” medical care—not specialized care or the best care possible.
This year, the legislature proposed two health-care bills aimed at reducing medical costs. One passed and would restore medical parole and medical furlough as exceptions to the elimination of parole. Another, still being considered, would expand the time a terminally ill inmate can be released into hospice.
Under current law, prison officials can release terminally ill prisoners two months prior to their expected death. Families Against Mandatory Minimums. a nonprofit focused on criminal justice reform. says that is the shortest hospice-release window in the country. The proposed bill would double that time to four months—still the shortest. with Alabama. South Carolina and Tennessee next at six months.
At a March hearing, Corrections Secretary Gary Westcott described what these decisions involve. “These people are on their death bed. Some of these people don’t even realize they’re in prison,” he said. He also described the cost mechanics of care. “We’re talking about changing diapers, feeding them. Most of them cannot do anything on their own,” Westcott said. Once inmates are transferred to a hospital, he added, those costs are picked up by Medicaid.
Budget decisions are moving at the same pace as the population shift. Landry is asking for an additional $82 million for next year’s corrections budget—11% more than the amount currently allotted. The investigation describes how over the past decade. correctional spending has fluctuated. including during the coronavirus pandemic when federal aid temporarily supplemented the corrections budget.
Even as overall state spending across Landry’s tenure is projected to drop by 2% when adjusted for inflation. corrections spending would rise by 9% if his proposed budget passes. Austin said there is “no indication that the need for more beds and more staff is going to flatten out. ” and that there is “no” plan to increase taxes. “All that’s left is to cut programs in other areas.”.
Those tradeoffs are central to another fight inside the legislature and beyond it. A new report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities in Washington. D.C. said the proposed increase in corrections spending would come at the expense of education. Landry has proposed cutting $165 million in education funding—$40 million for state colleges and universities and $125 million for K-12 education. including teacher pay.
Landry backed a measure that would have paid for teacher raises by liquidating three education trust funds, but voters rejected it in the May 16 election.
Michael Mitchell, the report’s author, said the state chose to boost funding for prisons while deprioritizing investments in teachers.
Sarah Omojola. director of the Louisiana office of the Vera Institute of Justice. said the state is being forced to make cuts because Landry and the Republican-controlled legislature pushed through their 2024 criminal justice bills in less than two weeks without the typical debate over costs. Omojola said the rollbacks were partisan and not supported by research. data or “fiscally sound policy. ” adding that the bills were approved before legislative staff computed the full expenses.
A Landry spokesperson did not respond to requests for comment. Rep. Debbie Villio. a Republican from Kenner who sponsored the 2024 bills that eliminated parole and significantly reduced the ability of prisoners to reduce their sentences through good behavior. did not respond to a request for comment. At the time the bills were passed. Villio texted the Times-Picayune that it was her position the legislation would not ramp up prison population and costs.
What the system is confronting now—more beds, more jail contracts, and more medical funding—is still unfolding. But the direction is becoming clearer inside the budget numbers and the policy choices that follow.
Under Landry’s sentencing rollbacks, Louisiana is building for a future that critics say comes at a steep price: not only in dollars, but in the human consequences of keeping people in custody longer as the population grows older and the medical burden rises.
Louisiana politics Jeff Landry corrections budget Angola incarceration parole medical parole criminal justice reform state prisons local jails inmate healthcare