Writing for the New Orleans City Business, Richard A. Webster details one prison where inmates are treated with constant verbal abuse and vicious beatings. While we understand this doesn’t happen in every prison, if it’s happening in one prison, it’s happening too much.
Jelpi Picou, who was an inmate in the Orleans Parish Prison spent his first three weeks of a yearlong sentence in the “House of Detention.” Picou says, “They treat you like an animal, and I mean everyone treats you that way. You know the guards are just as capable of violence as everyone else. You can never escape it. It permeates the walls of that place.”
Pat Nolan, vice president of the Prison Fellowship, says “The health and well-being of inmates is rarely a top public concern, but in cities struggling with soaring murder rates like New Orleans, there is a direct correlation between what happens in prison and what happens on the streets.”
Nolan has lead Justice Fellowship for the last 15 years and has worked to reform the criminal justice system. He understands that, “Inmates who are violently brutalized, whether it’s verbal or physical, tend to return to society full of rage which they take out on innocent victims, perpetuating the cycle of violent crime.”
Jails like Orleans Parish Prison are “nothing more than a breeding ground for more dangerous criminals,” says Nolan. This is why Nolan has made prison violence a priority of concern, serving on the national Prison Rape Elimination Commission and writing extensively on issues related to prison violence.
Illegal activity must be punished. Passively standing by while knowing violence occurs in our jails and prisons upon inmates who will return to our neighborhoods cannot be tolerated.