Tag: Lee Celano

Hurricane Katrina hit 11 years ago. Population of the City of New Orleans is down by over 95,000 people. Almost all this loss of people is in the African American community. The gap between rich and poor in New Orleans is massive, the largest in the country. Despite receiving $76 billion in assistance after Katrina, it is clear that poor and working people in New Orleans, especially African Americans, got very little of that help. Here are the numbers.

Louisiana, which has the highest incarceration rate in the country, no longer provides public defenders to all its people accused of crimes; within months, over half its public defender offices are expected to become insolvent. “It’s a nightmare,” according to James Dixon, the chief Louisiana Public Defender. “You have people in jail that don’t have lawyers. It’s that basic.” The meltdown of the Louisiana public defender system makes it criminal to call it a justice system.