Office of Criminal Justice Coordination Reports

The New Orleans Racial Equity Cohort Partnership Team, comprised of the Office of Criminal Justice Coordination and Total Community Action, Inc., engaged in an intensive community engagement process over the course of two years, led by Agents of Change, to reimagine safety and justice in New Orleans. This report is the culmination of, as well as the roadmap to future sustainability and institutionalizing criminal legal system reimaingination in New Orleans.

This preliminary report aims to address the question, “What are the historic trends in jail admission, average jail population, and average length of stay from 2016 through the end of the second quarter of 2025 for women detained in the Orleans Justice Center?”

In 2016, when New Orleans joined the Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC), it held the highest per capita jail population in the nation. At that time, despite a significant drop from 7,500 to 2,000 in the prior decade, the city still struggled with deep-rooted challenges of mass incarceration. Since joining the SJC, New Orleans has sustained a jail population reduction of over 17% and now ranks among the top ten sites nationally for jail population reduction. At its lowest point, the jail population fell to 760– a more than 55% reduction from the 2010 baseline. This progress has been driven by a collaborative, equity-centered, community-informed approach that includes initiatives like Law Enforcement Assisted Diversion, Pretrial Services, Prosecutorial Diversion, Jail Release Navigators, and Warrant Reduction Clinics– each designed to break the cycle between poverty and incarceration and support safer, thriving communities.

This resource guide serves as a source of opportunity for individuals seeking to navigate life after incarceration. It's a dynamic tool aimed at ensuring equitable access to vital resources such as housing, education, employment, and personal success. The New Orleans Reentry Task Force (NORTF) aims to dismantle systemic obstacles that formerly incarcerated individuals face upon re-entering society and hopes that this guide can serve as a blueprint designed to provide equitable access to vital resources. These resources include housing solutions tailored to diverse needs, educational opportunities spanning from basic literacy to advanced vocational training, and avenues for securing employment and financial stability

New Orleans began participation in the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation Safety and Justice Challenge (SJC) in 2015. The Safety and Justice Challenge provides support to local communities that are ready to tackle one of the greatest drivers of over-incarceration in America—the misuse and overuse of jails. This Network of cities, counties, and states is proving it is possible to rethink local justice systems from the ground up, with forward-looking, smart solutions that are data-driven, equity-focused, and community-informed, and that safely reduce jail populations, eliminate ineffective and unfair practices, and reduce racial disparities.

On February 18, 2025, Commissioner Tenisha Stevens was asked to speak on the state of safety and justice in New Orleans, specifically as it relates to African Americans in the New Orleans community.

This report was prepared by the National Institute for Criminal Justice Reform to provide recommendations on the $4.45 million in American Rescue Plan Act (ARPA) Funding for Juvenile Justice Programming and Services. The recommendations for programs were developed through identification of nationally evaluated programs and interventions, identified needs and service gaps on the ground, and recommendations and existing proposals from local stakeholders and providers (when aligned with both evidence on effectiveness and identified need). The NICJR has been engaged a technical assistance provider to support the implementation of the Juvenile Justice ARPA investment.

The New Orleans Sequential Intercept Model (SIM) Workshop was focused on mapping Intercepts 2 through 4, encompassing initial detention through reentry. This focus allowed our stakeholders to spend more time discussing programming and treatment while individuals are detained in terms of case processing, diversion and specialty courts, competency hearings and restoration, and reentry planning.

The Stress Test was an exercise was conducted by the JFA Institute with the assistance of the Office of Criminal Justice Coordination (OCJC), Justice Management Institute (JMI), and Policy Research Associates (PRA). The purpose of the stress test exercise was to explore opportunities for improving the criminal justice system and potentially shorten the time individuals are held in custody pending the disposition of their case, while maintaining public safety.

After reaching a historic low in homicides in 2019, the City of New Orleans has experienced an increase in gun violence since the start of the COVID-19 pandemic. This spike in violence is not unique to New Orleans, but rather a trend that is happening nation-wide. In 2021, New Orleans amassed 218 murders and is on track to out pace that number in 2022. As of June 13, 2022, there have been 137 homicides that have occurred in New Orleans

Provides justice professionals with the accurate and timely information they need to effectively fulfill their respective missions. Provides policymakers with data to effectively plan, prioritize, and evaluate the impact of resources invested in the criminal justice system. Provides the public at-large with information by which to evaluate the performance of the justice system and returns on taxpayer resources.

In partnership with the VERA Institute of Justice, the Office of Criminal Justice established the Ethnic and Racial Disparity (ERD) Working Group in October 2020. Amid a global pandemic, which hasfurthershed light on the pervasiveness ofstructuralracism, the Working Group set out to identify and addressthe drivers ofracial and ethnic disparitiesin the Orleans Parish criminal legalsystem

The City of New Orleans has released a comprehensive plan titled "A Roadmap to Transform the Justice System in New Orleans." This ambitious document outlines a series of reforms and initiatives aimed at creating a more fair, equitable, and effective criminal justice system in the city

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