SHREVEPORT, La. (KTAL/KMSS) – The Caddo Parish Public Defender Office said Friday it does not have the staff or budget to hire more attorneys as suggested by Caddo Parish Sheriff Steve Prator in a meeting he called at the end of September.
In a meeting on Tuesday, Prator called the situation at CCC “dire” as he explained that the jail is holding more inmates than the facility’s emergency capacity allows. Prator said many of those in the facility are awaiting pre-trial hearings, costing Caddo Parish around $30 million annually.
“We’re over the emergency limit, so we have a horrible situation,” Prator said.
The Caddo Parish Public Defenders Office says they do not have the budget to hire more full-time public defenders, which would help alleviate the overcrowding at Caddo Correctional Center for those awaiting pre-trial hearings.
“There are budget concerns; we do not have the budget right now to add public defenders,” Mary Harried, the Deputy District Defender at Caddo Parish Public Defender Office, said.
However, CPPD is exploring ways to help reduce the number of inmates currently held in CCC, including conducting a risk assessment to determine if certain inmates can be released with ankle monitors.
“We talk about doing a risk assessment to see if there are any individuals who could be released on ankle monitors,” Harried said.
Shreveport business owner Aubrey Davenport understands firsthand how out of control the overcrowding is in CCC. He was arrested and held at Caddo Correctional Center in August of 2019 after an arrest for a non-violent drug offense.
“Because the way they throw us in jail like that, in that particular jail, I wouldn’t wish that on nobody,” says Davenport, who was released in October 2020.
Davenport says his cell, which typically was made for two inmates, had three inmates instead.
“I say four by twelve maybe, and you got two bunks, and you got a boat on the floor,” Davenport said. “I slept on the floor several times, on numerous occasions.”
In Tuesday’s meeting, Prator said the overcrowding in CCC is something that has been an issue dating as far back as 2008.
The facility was built to hold 1,070 inmates and now holds more than 1,500. According to Prator, there are fewer arrests but more inmates awaiting pre-trial.
“We got people that have been here six, five, four, three years waiting trial, plus the regular ones over 250 that have been in jail waiting trial,” Prator said.
Currently, there are ten full-time and ten contracted defense attorneys at CPPD.
“We’ve recognized that there’s an issue, and we are all doing what we can do to address the issue going forward,” says Harried.
