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Rachel Jones
was a public defender
in Brooklyn until
January 2005,
when she moved
to New Orleans
to defend capital
cases in Louisiana.
She has worked
at the Louisiana
Capital Assistance
Center in New
Orleans since
January 2005,
and has been helping
in the attempt
to restructure
the local criminal
justice system.
She is also the
appointed counsel
for several individuals
who have become
victims of the
mismanaged prison
system of post-Katrina
New Orleans.
RJ: By the
time [the sheriff]
realized that
he had to evacuate,
by the time
that there was
a mandatory
evacuation,
it was already
just such mayhem.
The prison had
already flooded,
there were already
people breaking
out for survival,
and to break
out. It was
such a disorganized
mess, and you
had all of these
guys who hadn’t
been fed, who
had been in
sewer water,
essentially,
for days.
VOW: How many
people are we
talking about?
I’ve heard
various total
numbers of people
who were in
OPP (Orleans
Parish Prison)
at the time.
RJ: This is
another level
of problems.
The sheriff
was very reluctant
to actually
give us numbers
of who was in
OPP at the time
that the hurricane
hit. The number
that’s
bandied about
a lot is 8,500.
I think that
number includes
OPP and all
of the other
surrounding
parishes that
were evacuated.
So that includes
Jefferson Parish
and that includes
Saint Bernard…
VOW: Where were
the other parish’s
prisons evacuated
to? Was it the
same haphazard
system?
RJ: Jefferson
was evacuated,
and they ended
up being evacuated
to all over
the state. But
their prison
didn’t
flood. There
are some reports
that there was
some kind of
chemical spill
right near where
the prison is
in Jefferson
Parish, but
they got out—in
relative terms—in
a more organized
fashion than
OPP. And they
also weren’t
in the same
sort of predicament
as OPP is. OPP
is in the lowest
level of the
flood plain, so it
flooded, whereas
the Jefferson
Parish jail
was never going
to flood. Other
places, because
OPP was kind
of hanging tough
and weren’t
going to evacuate,
Saint Bernard
inmates were
evacuated to
OPP. They went
through the
OPP nightmare
and then got
evacuated out
of OPP when
it was a mandatory
evacuation...
The places south
of Orleans who
actually got
evacuated were
sleeping in
the gym at the
Orleans Parish
Prison when
the mandatory
evacuation was
declared. When
I went to various
prisons throughout
the state, they
had people sleeping
on the floor,
on mattresses
with a thin
cotton blanket.
And this was,
like, weeks
after the storm.
They had no
provisions for
people. There
were places
with cockroaches
and crickets
jumping around
all over the
place and guys
sleeping on
the beds. It’s
not like they
had them in
their bunks
in cells. They
just stuck them
where they could.
They had people
sleeping in
hobby shops…
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