From Our Friends at The New Orleans Tribune

by Anitra Brown

Let’s Not Allow Black Leadership to be the Jailbreak Scapegoat

It’s been more than a week since 10 inmates made a brazen escape from the Orleans Justice Center. Most of escapees have been captured. Several other individuals have been arrested on charges that range from being a principle to the act itself to aiding inmates after the fact.

Let us begin by saying we want a safe city and a secure jail as much as anyone. What we don’t want, however, is for Black leadership to become the sacrificial lamb in the face of this travesty. Yes, once again, here we are.

Note that Gov. Jeff Landry is ready to pounce. His desire to takeover New Orleans is no secret. And if our community does not come together and stay together, he will succeed. Trust us, we do not need Jeff Landry’s help. It’s not as if he has done such a great job handling the state’s prison system, which is beset with its own issues.

Also, this isn’t about taking sides or supporting one political candidate or elected official over another. When the time comes, The Tribune will weigh and measure each candidate for every office and offer our endorsements based on what we believe is best for all of New Orleans as we always do. As for now, we are about protecting endangered Black leadership. Always have been. Always will be.

Black leadership is, without a doubt, under attack. We have been saying this for years because we see it and refuse to ignore it. When and wherever Black leadership exists, it is threatened. It was under attack in the 1990s to the mid-2000s. Of course, it was tamped down just a bit for about eight years. But as soon as the city’s top leader was once again Black, Black leadership was in the crosshairs. We warned the community that it was about Black leadership a few years ago when the power brokers and shadow government tried to recall the Mayor. It is under attack right now; and Sheriff Susan Hutson is just the latest target.

No one wants to say it, so we will: No one – not appointed officials, elected officials, former officials or aspiring officials – should be using this escape as an opportunity to disparage Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson for personal gain or political clout. Trust us, today it’s Sheriff Hutson. Tomorrow, it could easily be you. In the attempt to wrest power and control from the people of New Orleans and from Black leadership, no one is safe. And if you haven’t figured it out now, mainstream media and backroom power brokers in this city are not at all above using the susceptible and/or selfish among us to push out other Black folk. Be aware, you are nothing more than steppingstones, pawns, and puppets.  If you allow yourself to be used, they will use you.

Related: Jailbreak, Blame, and a Shocking Leadership Failure – Black Source Media

They have gone after nearly every Black mayor this city has had. Sometimes they go after them before they can become mayor. We have watched as they have taken down leaders from our community.

And let’s not forget the Ray Nagin story, how they plucked him out of his executive job at Cox Cable. They characterized him as this breath of fresh air, a political outsider and business leader who would clean the city up and used him to cast aspersion on the administration of his predecessor, Marc Morial.  Not sure that was enough, they purposefully and incessantly linked Nagin’s top challenger in his first bid for mayor, former NOPD Chief Richard Pennington, to former Mayor Marc Morial – the man that brought him to New Orleans to get a handle on crime. The people fell for it – hook line and sinker; and Nagin won. Yet, the very ones that picked him turned against him on the heels of Hurricane Katrina.When he urged Black New Orleanians to return and voiced opposition to plans to keep these residents away, those same people that dubbed him king decided he longer served their purpose and literally threw him to the feds.

Ah, and they got exactly what they wanted – the city’s first white mayor in 32 years.

Figuring that it wouldn’t happen again, they had to find another Black candidate to carry their water. They thought they had one in former community leader, turned councilwoman LaToya Cantrell, a transplant from California. The narrative of her being an outsider, someone not entrenched in the city’s Black leadership establishment was pushed so much so that it became her selling point. But when she proved to have a mind of her own, demonstrated by her decision to put the health of the city’s low-wage earning workers above big business during the COVID-19 pandemic, she became dispensable too.  Her every move scrutinized, analyzed . . . where she slept, where she dined, how she traveled, the way she danced. She was criticized in ways no mayor before her has ever faced. And if you think all of that hasn’t been about ensuring that New Orleans does not elect another Black mayor this year, then you should follow us about 10 miles off the coast of Venice. There’s some land there that we would love to sell you.

Again, no one is sacred. While he was sheriff, Marlin Gusman, who had earned our endorsement in his final, but failed, bid for office, was the subject of media and public ire for pushing to expand the jail, an effort he contended was needed to ensure care, custody and control of all inmates and to provide adequate medical and mental health services. But let’s not forget that Gusman’s push for more beds was twisted into a weakness that behind-the-scenes power brokers used to push him out as they threw their support behind Hutson, the former Independent Police Monitor, who they fashioned as a political newcomer and reform candidate. And now, in the wake of the jail escape, the media happily turns back to Gusman for insight, if it means his words, however unsuspecting, can help slam Hutson.

Noticing a pattern yet, people?

So when we say don’t fall for the okie-doke, don’t allow this jailbreak to become all about Susan Hutson, we mean that. No one else seems brave enough to say it, so we will: This isn’t about the jail, the jailbreak or Sheriff Hutson. It is about eradicating Black leadership – pure and simple. And if we continue to allow the mainstream media and the rich and powerful elite to lead our people to believe otherwise, we will all be on the outside looking in very soon.

Hell, it feels like we are already there. You must know that this is about the upcoming municipal elections. Most obvious and despicable to us are the top leaders on the New Orleans City Council who have spent most of their time since 2017 attacking Mayor Cantrell to launch their own mayoral campaigns or heighten their political profile, ignoring the work they were actually elected to do. One cannot open a newspaper or turn on a television without seeing petty political attacks.

We’re not often given to conspiracy theories, but the timing of this whole thing stinks – about seven weeks away from the official qualifying, a few months away from the fall elections. Hutson has already suspended her campaign according to media reports. We hope she changes her mind. Not because we don’t believe there are other qualified candidates in the race, but because if she officially withdraws, those who have made destroying Black leadership their life-long pursuit can boast a win. We hope that each of the candidates runs his or her best campaign, including Hutson. We want the people of New Orleans to decide.

And before we go any further, let’s make this clear: No, we are not saying that the May 16 jailbreak was orchestrated by Hutson’s political foes or the local elite who silently wield power in the city. It just happened. We do know that they have no problem exploiting it for their own gain and to attack Black leadership, even if it means ignoring real problems.

The Real Problems

And there are real problems. Let’s talk about them.

The New Orleans jail, like many correctional facilities in the United States, has faced chronic underfunding for decades. Insufficient financial resources have resulted in outdated infrastructure, inadequate staffing, and limited access to modern security technologies. Yes, we know that the Orleans Justice Center was a state-of-the art facility when it opened a decade ago. Meanwhile, most of y’all get a new iPhone every two to three years. We think it safe to say the jail could use security and technology upgrades and renovations every 10 years or so.

In the case of the New Orleans escape, systemic issues played a critical role. Amidst this challenging environment, we say that Hutson has been unfairly attacked in the media and by some members of the public, who are just itching to assign blame for the incident. Let’s not fall into the danger of scapegoating individuals for systemic failures, rather than addressing the root causes.

Don’t get us wrong here. Ten people escaping from the jail at one time is crazy work. Almost as crazy as 21 people escaping, which is exactly what happened in 1968. That’s right, the May 16 breakout is not the first or even the largest in the city’s history.

Newsflash: Jailbreaks happen. They have happened in the past. They will happen in the future. And when they do, they should be followed by an all-out manhunt, a thorough investigation into the specific details surrounding the escape, including whether any jail employees and/or civilians were complicit, along with a thorough review of policies, procedures and security measures in an effort to mitigate future incidents. But jail escapes are not about the failures of any one person. They are complex and often linked to underfunding and overcrowding, not with anyone being asleep at the wheel. Of course, no one wants to talk about that, especially not in the wake of the OPSO millage renewal passing by a razor-thin, two-vote margin barely two weeks before the inmates escaped.

Dear Orleans Parish Voters: If you plan to be this wishy-washy about funding the jail, we suggest you strap in. There will be plenty more escapes, we guarantee it.

According to data from the Bureau of Justice Statistics, escapes from secure adult correctional facilities have become relatively rare in recent decades. For example, in 2019, there were fewer than 50 reported escapes from state prisons nationwide, a decrease from the hundreds of escapes reported annually in the 1970s and 1980s.

But the same cannot be said for local jails, which often have fewer resources and less stringent security measures than state or federal prisons. The frequency of jail escapes varies by region and facility, but experts estimate that several dozen incidents occur each year across the country. These escapes are often symptomatic of deeper issues within the correctional system, such as underfunding, overcrowding, and inadequate training for staff. In other words, money!

Sheriff Hutson just went to the people of New Orleans and asked for a millage renewal to help operate the jail, and y’all barely passed it. Two votes! Either we want a safe jail, or we don’t.

And now we are supposed to be all excited and grateful that federal and state authorities are swooping in to “save” us, sending the captured inmates to the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. But no one seems to want to talk about the fact that at least some of the escapees were already convicted of violent state felony charges, making them DOC inmates that were being housed at a local jail facility. The question is WHY?

Okay . . . no one else will say it, but somebody’s got to . . . so we will. The use of parish prisons as overflow facilities for Louisiana DOC inmates has to end. And we need to start having honest conversations about why this practice exists in the first place. State prisons are overcrowded. They should not be. Still at large as of the time this editorial was published, Derrick Groves was convicted of murder . . . last year. It’s almost June. Why was he still in the local jail?

Well, part of the reason is this: In 2019, when the state prison population was 31,609, some 12,682 or just over 40 percent of those individuals were non-violent offenders. Thanks to some moderate criminal justice reform measures, 2019 statistics represent a drop from 2016, when 50 percent of the state of Louisiana’s prison population was non-violent offenders. But state prisons filled with non-violent offenders while convicted murderers are housed in parish jails is even crazier than the jail breakout. Obviously, more reform is needed to not just ease, but to eliminate overcrowding in the state corrections system so that it can house violent offenders.

Meanwhile, we have to end the practice of local jails supplementing their budgets by housing state prisoners. Every day Derrick Groves spent in the Orleans Justice Center after his guilty verdict meant the local jail received money to have him in custody. And while we can understand the need local jails have for that revenue, having offenders convicted of serious, violent crimes remain in the parish prison after their case has been adjudicated makes our community less safe. Local jails and state prisons ought to be focused on public safety and rehabilitation, not money making. But in order to do that, local jails must be adequately funded for the care, custody and control of local inmates so that they do not have to indefinitely house state Department of Corrections prisoners to meet their bottom line. If we are not talking about criminal justice reform and adequate funding in the same breath and with the same fervor as the recent jail escape, then what are we talking about?

While it is tempting to assign blame to specific individuals, such as Sheriff Huston, a more productive approach is to examine the underlying causes. We get it, pointing fingers at the Sheriff — attacking another Black leader — is easier and far more advantageous for those with an agenda. But we have another idea — how about we recognize that our underfunded jail faces major challenges and work toward meaningful reforms that enhance security, protect staff and inmates, and restore public trust in the justice system.