ACLU of Louisiana releases candidate dashboard and polling showing widespread support for reforms
NEW ORLEANS – With a new poll showing widespread support for justice reforms and measures to combat mass incarceration, the American Civil Liberties Union of Louisiana has launched a DA candidate dashboard to educate Orleans Parish voters about district attorney candidates on the November 3 ballot.
In the poll, conducted by HIT Strategies, voters surveyed ranked the following priorities as very important for the next District Attorney to focus on: 69% want their district attorney to be transparent with office policies and publicly share data on the impacts of decisions by prosecutors; 65% want a set goal to reduce the number of presumptively innocent people held in the parish jail while awaiting a charging decision or trial; and 60% want to never lock up victims of crime in jail just to secure their testimony.
The dashboard, based on questionnaires received from Arthur Hunter, Jason Williams, and Keva Landrum, shows where the three candidates stand on issues such as jailing crime victims, marijuana enforcement, “tough on crime” sentencing laws, juvenile justice, pretrial incarceration, and transparency and accountability.
“For the last decade, Orleans Parish has been one of the most significant drivers of incarceration and racial inequity in Louisiana’s criminal legal system – and no single person in Orleans Parish has as much power to bring this crisis to an end as the district attorney,” said Chris Kaiser, advocacy director of the ACLU of Louisiana. “Orleans Parish voters overwhelmingly want a district attorney who will commit to ending mass incarceration and confronting racism in the criminal legal system. We hope this voter tool will help voters learn about the candidates, each of whom has made campaign promises to usher in a new era of smart-on-crime policies in New Orleans.”
The candidate dashboard is online at: www.laaclu.org/KnowYourDA
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