Stephanie Grace: Politicians’ pointy fingers won’t solve entrenched jail challenges

It’s good that Orleans Parish Sheriff Susan Hutson is now taking “full accountability” for the mass breakout from the jail she runs, and calling it what it is: an epic failure that played out on her watch.

You know what wasn’t good? That it took Hutson more than four days to say so, after initially labeling the early morning escape of 10 Orleans Justice Center inmates — without offering a shred of evidence — as “very suspicious” because it happened “as we’re getting ready to start this sheriff’s race.”

And it’s good that Gov. Jeff Landry quickly put state resources behind the search for the escapees, vowed to investigate and proposed an examination of policies that could have led to the shocking breach of security — all ideas that are in line with his well-received support for establishing a state police presence in New Orleans.

Not so good: Landry’s knee-jerk rant against progressive criminal justice reform — basically the notion that it is possible to balance public safety with less incarceration of those who do not pose a public danger. That would obviously not include the escapees who’ve been charged with or convicted of murder or attempted murder.

For good measure, Landry also managed to insult New Orleans voters for making bad choices at the ballot box, and lump in other officials who have run on criminal justice reform platforms — including District Attorney Jason Williams, who was personally part of the prosecution team that convicted one escaped inmate of a gang-related murder.

“George Soros came over the last decade or so and spent a ton of money in the city of New Orleans, electing these progressive people,” Landry told talk show host Chris Cuomo. “It’s like he came [as] Santa Claus, and inside his sack, he put out a DA [district attorney], a sheriff, and I think about six judges, and we have been having problems in the city ever since now.”

Apparently it needs to be said that if ever there were a time for all public officials put their personal politics aside, it should be during a moment of obvious official inadequacy that resulted in an ongoing public safety crisis. Besides, all this finger-pointing isn’t going to tell voters anything they don’t already know.

It’s not as if Hutson, who was elected amid deep frustration with the incumbent she beat, Marlin Gusman, had demonstrable voter confidence before the escape.

A tax increase she sought two years ago failed by a spectacular 91%-9% margin at the polls, and a more recent renewal to keep operations going passed by a mere two votes. Her reelection bid this fall — which she suspended last week — had already attracted muscular opposition before the escape. While she’s still nominally a candidate (pending qualifying in July), Hutson’s had her chance to set a better course.

As for Landry, even if some of the factors he mentioned turn out to be significant, his broad diatribe was predictable and depressingly tone deaf. He should remember that the Troop NOLA policing experiment works because it represents cooperation among those with different political views, not scolding confrontation.

While these politicians couldn’t resist the chance to score points, this shocking breakout is actually a different type of opportunity: To finally tackle the intractable challenges the jail faces, from understaffing and overcrowding to physical deficiencies such as faulty locks, in a facility that is just nine years old and was billed as state of the art.

Some of those have to do with the complicated division of responsibility between separately elected branches of government, a mess that long predates Hutson and Landry, and extends into every corner of the state.

Here’s how the Bureau of Governmental Research described the history in its call to come up with a joint strategy: “The City must provide most of the jail’s funding under state law, but it has no control over how the Sheriff runs the jail. Conversely, the Sheriff’s ability to improve jail conditions can be limited by the City’s control of the purse strings. Over the decades, the City has blamed the jail’s deficiencies on mismanagement, while the Sheriff has cited inadequate funding. The resulting power struggles have impeded cooperative problem solving.”

No kidding. So to that end, the jail’s future should be a central topic not just for sheriff candidates but for those running for mayor and City Council on the same fall ballot.

There are also clearly problems to work out between the sheriff’s office and the state Department of Corrections, including how and when to transfer dangerous inmates to from local to state custody.

The bottom line is that, beyond recapturing all the escapees and arresting those who helped them, there’s a whole lot to do.

But if politicians won’t stop pointing fingers, they’ll never get down to the hard work at hand.