BATON ROUGE, La. (BRPROUD) — The Louisiana governor’s office says results of a JMC Analytics poll show that Louisiana voters are in support of the 2017 bipartisan criminal justice reform package.
The governor’s office said according to the poll, 70% of Louisiana voters, which includes 63% of Republicans, think it’s more important for the justice system to reduce the repeat offenders rate than it is to incarcerate non-violent offenders for a longer time. The poll also showed 83% of voters believe the state should be easier for previously incarcerated residents to get jobs.
“This poll proves that the broad bipartisan support for criminal justice reform in 2017 has not changed among Louisiana’s voters,” said Governor John Bel Edwards. “Our reform focused on reducing recidivism by lowering the number of non-violent, non-sex offenders in our prisons and investing the money saved into job training, juvenile justice initiatives, victims services, and re-entry programs run by respected community organizations like Goodwill, United Way, and Catholic Charities. Conservative and non-partisan experts agree that our bipartisan criminal justice reform was a success and that by focusing criminal justice system resources on violent offenders who pose a threat to public safety, our reform helped our criminal justice system during the nationwide increase in violent crime following the COVID-19 pandemic. There is too much crime, and we have more work to do. The people of Louisiana know that the way to reduce crime is to continue the bipartisan, data-driven, smart-on-crime approach we have taken.”
The bipartisan criminal justice reform was signed into law by Edwards in 2017.
