Violent convicts working in state buildings, audit finds
Louisiana's state prisons agency has done an inadequate job ensuring that violent criminals aren't assigned to work in the State Capitol and Governor's Mansion, the state's legislative auditor concluded in a report released Monday (Dec. 12).
None of Louisiana's nine prisons fully complied with department requirements for the trusty programs, Legislative Auditor Daryl Purpera's office found in its review.
The programs give certain minimum-security offenders privileges not available to the general prison population. Some even get to work outside prison, depending on the trusty level they are assigned. They earn a small paycheck or time off their sentences for the work. Some live in Louisiana State Police barracks while they work in state government buildings.
A third of the trusties working in Baton Rouge state buildings had committed violent crimes that should have made them ineligible, but the corrections department "said that these trusties have less stringent eligibility requirements because they have difficulty finding eligible trusties to fulfill its contracts for labor crews," the audit found.
Read more: http://www.nola.com/politics/index.ssf/2016/12/violent_convicts_working_in_st.html