BATON ROUGE, La. — Gov. Jeff Landry says he is hoping the next 16 days at the state capitol will lead to a safer Louisiana.
Lawmakers are in Baton Rouge for the start of a special legislative session to consider sweeping changes in the state’s criminal justice system. The governor addressed house and senate members for about 45 minutes, laying out his crime agenda.
He is asking lawmakers to get tough on lawbreakers and repeal soft-on-crime policies that he says enable criminals and hurt our communities.
“The goal of the criminal justice reform should not be able letting people out of jail, it should be how to keep people from going to jail,” Landry said.
Among the two-dozen tough-on-crime-related items on Landry’s agenda for the special session are expanding methods to carry out death row executions, restricting parole eligibility, lowering the age at which young offenders can be prosecuted in adult court, and increasing penalties for certain crimes such as carjacking.
Landry mentioned the horrific 2022 carjacking and murder of 73-year-old Linda Frickey in New Orleans as an example of why the crime requires harsher penalties.
“Those who make a decision to carjack someone in Louisiana, hear me clearly, they better hope the car is full of gas and can take them where we can never find them because when we do, they will spend a long, long time in jail,” Landry said.
Rep. Mark Wright, R-Covington thanked the governor for making crime reduction a priority.
“Sending a message and making sure the public understands that we’re on watch,” Wright said. “We tried some things eight years ago. It hasn’t necessarily worked. We want to look at some new things.”
But some lawmakers fear the governor’s proposals will roll back a package of criminal justice reforms passed by the legislature in 2017.
“We plan to point out ideas that we think should have been included in the call, investments in education, investments in mental health, investments in housing, investments in infrastructure, investment in all of the things that are going to reduce crime and stop it from happening,” Sen. Royce Duplessis said.
Council for a Better Louisiana, the Public Affairs Research Council, and the Committee of 100 issued a joint statement about the items in the special session.
They said reversing course to jail large numbers of low-risk or nonviolent people carries too hefty a cost for taxpayers.
“We really made progress with the criminal just reforms of a few years ago,” said CABL President Barry Erwin. “The evidence suggests that its saved the state money. We reinvested in people who are getting out of jail and by all accounts it really worked. Moving backwards is not the right step in our opinion.”
WATCH: WWL Louisiana's Alyssa Curtis breaks down the opening day of Gov. Landry's Special Session on Crime below:
The 16-day session must end by March 6.
“Today, I ask you to place the voices of the tired and the broken-hearted victims of crime above the irresponsible rhetoric that is destroying our quality of life,” Landry said.
Lawmakers voted to suspend their rules so that bills can be considered beginning Tuesday, rather than having to lay over for a day.
Committee debate begins first thing in the morning.