NEW ORLEANS — A plan is in the works to transform the juvenile electronic monitoring program in New Orleans.
“It became very clear that the courts in juvenile were sending young people out with monitors that juveniles knew were not being looked at in real-time,” Orleans District Attorney Jason Williams said.
In June, French Quarter tour guide Kristi Thibodeaux was allegedly shot and killed on St. Peter Street by a 15-year-old.
He was placed on an ankle monitor for a previous offense.
Williams says he has been working with Attorney General Liz Murrill, state Office of Juvenile Justice and City Council President Helena Moreno on the new monitoring strategy.
“The gist would be mandatory real-time monitoring, Williams said. “The gist would also need to include sharing of that information with the DA’s office, so that we are getting those reports, and those reports just aren’t going to a file somewhere.”
The program would require Juvenile Court Judges to read any violations or noncompliance issues in open court and make sure they’re dealt with.
Someone would also be dedicated to picking up the juvenile if the device is tampered with or removed.
Moreno says the city would use about $2 million in unspent federal funds to pay for a pilot program.
“The city council two years ago, in 2022, appropriated roughly 4.45 million dollars in ARPA money to the New Orleans Crime Commissioner to focus on issues like this, regarding juvenile offenders, and none of that money has been spent,” Moreno said.
The program would provide real-time monitoring for up to 200 juvenile offenders in the city.
“Still preliminary, but plans are underway because this is something that’s long overdue,” Moreno said. “We know it. The problem has just been exacerbated over the years with inaction.”
In the meantime, AG Murrill has ordered the Louisiana Department of Justice to open an investigation into the ankle monitoring contracts with the juvenile court system in New Orleans.
AG Murrill released the following statement on Wednesday:
"An ankle monitoring program that doesn’t include active supervision with accountability and increased consequences for violations is not a functional system. My objective to have a functional system. I’m working toward that goal in continuing conversations with the OPDA, the Juvenile Court judges, Justice Piper Griffin, the Office of Juvenile Justice, and the Governor."
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