Louisiana’s 2017 Criminal Justice Reforms

Strengthen community supervision

• To expand the use of evidence-based community supervision practices that reduce recidivism, the law:
  Focuses probation and parole officers’ time on high-risk periods.
  ––Reduces maximum probation terms for nonviolent crimes from five to three years to concentrate officers’ time on the period when those under supervision are most likely to fail.
• Provides incentives for probationers and parolees to meet their supervision conditions.
  ––Establishes “earned compliance credits” for nonviolent crimes, a policy that awards 30 days off of community supervision terms for every full calendar month of compliance.
• Requires that successfully completed probation time for nonviolent convictions be credited toward prison sentences imposed for probation violations.
  ––Reduces the time a person revoked from probation serves behind bars by deducting time spent in compliance with supervision. This change was modeled on a policy already in place for those on parole.Establishes swift, certain, and proportional sanctions for supervision violations.
  ––Gives probation officers blanket authority to use administrative sanctions, such as increased reporting, community service, and short jail stays, for probationers with nonviolent convictions who fail to comply with the terms of their supervision. Similar powers had already been granted for all parolees.
  ––Prohibits the use of jail as a sanction for first and second low-level violations.
  ––Modifies the use of jail sanctions under Acts 402 and 299, which were adopted in 2007 and 2015, respectively, and allow for alternatives to complete revocation of community supervision:22
  ~~~Authorizes an unlimited number of jail sanctions for probationers and parolees.
  ~~~Caps stay at 15, 30, and 45 days for the first, second, and subsequent sanctions, respectively.
  ~~~Broadens the categories of misconduct that can be addressed with Act 402/299 jail sanctions.
  ––Expands the pool of violations for which officers can respond with administrative sanctions.