BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) - The Latest on the passage of 10 bills aimed at reducing Louisiana’s highest-in-the-nation incarceration rate (all times local):
12:20 p.m.
Gov. John Bel Edwards has signed into law 10 bills that he says make up the “most extensive, complete package of criminal justice reform” in Louisiana’s history.
Surrounded by a bipartisan group of beaming lawmakers, the Democratic governor signed the 10 bills Thursday. Lawmakers embraced one another and posed for selfies with jubilant activists as they listened to a live jazz band that had been brought into a reception hall for the occasion.
After the heavily negotiated laws go into effect in the coming months, Edwards predicts the state prison population will fall by about 10 percent over the next decade, resulting in millions in savings.
Many of those dollars will be reinvested into efforts to keep people from returning to prison.
__
8:45 a.m.
In a legislative session mired by budget feuds, tax disagreements and a divisive debate over Confederate monuments, Gov. John Bel Edwards had one major achievement: He convinced legislators to overhaul Louisiana’s criminal sentencing laws and its approach to prisoner rehabilitation.
Over the course of about two months during the recently-ended regular session, 10 heavily-negotiated bills backed by the governor and a state task force steadily progressed through the Legislature.
On Thursday, Edwards is expected to sign all 10 proposals into law.
After the laws go into effect in the coming months, the Democratic governor predicts the state’s prison population will fall by about 10 percent over the next decade, resulting in millions in savings. Many of those dollars will be reinvested into efforts to keep people from returning to prison.
___
House Bills 116, 249, 489, 519, 680 681 and Senate Bills 16, 139, 220, 221: www.legis.la.gov
Please read our comment policy before commenting.