Longtime independent police observer and criminal justice reformer Susan Hutson announced on 11. Hutson will be the first African American woman to run the city’s prison – in fact, the first female black sheriff in Louisiana history.

Hutson, who served as an independent police observer with the New Orleans Police Department, survived a primary that nearly re-elected Gusman, with a 48 percent performance. But she persisted in the general to beat the 17-year-old incumbent after running a campaign that focused on community engagement, the safety of inmates and guards, and transparency in Orleans Parish Prison. All of this, she notes, was sorely lacking in the downtown prison complex under Gusman’s leadership and despite an ongoing federal approval decree.

Hutson took some time to speak to him from a weekend holiday event The nation about their goals and priorities. She says she will focus on what OPP can do for inmates in her custody, “how to look after them,” as well as training and supporting her deputy and prison guards staff – and most importantly, helping the Community to achieve “right to ship” of a prison system that is currently under federal approval decree due to a history of rampant unconstitutionality.

“Pretty much every aspect of this prison is not working properly,” says Hutson, promising to conduct a baseline audit to see how things can be fixed – “be it the civilian side, the paid details system, the prison itself, the mental health services “Says Hutson. “The amount of money going to jail” hasn’t changed the fact that “people aren’t getting the services they need”.

Some of the issues are fundamental issues like lack of toilet paper for inmates or that some inmates were unclothed, says Hutson, who plans to reevaluate staff and employment in the prison with an AmeriCorps program in Detroit in view that will help future ones To train prison guards in a safe manner.

Hutson was elected to Katrina after a long string of attempted prison reforms and upgrades – including efforts to restore justice programs, reform the classification of inmates, a new, cutting-edge FEMA-funded prison, and other initiatives. But the prison, overseen by the Orléans Parish Sheriff’s Office (OPSO), has a way to go before it gets out of federal oversight.

Hutson makes headlines for her victory – along with New York City’s new police superintendent, Keechant Sewell, another first for a Black Woman – but it’s also worth noting that another criminal justice reformer, Simone Levine, announced last week that she was leaving the watchdog group Guard Nola Become Prosecutor and Supervisor at Orleans Parish Prosecutor’s Office.

Levine also brings people-centered ethics and mentality to her new post – and has been a tireless advocate of transparency and accountability in the prosecution and judicial system in New Orleans, where she will now lead.

“I always had the feeling that reforms had to flow into the daily processes of the prosecution,” says Levine, who will take up office in January. She says she will bring the best practices she advocated at CourtWatch to her new job.

Her goal, says Brooklyn-born Levine, is “to make sure you have people who are as ethical as possible and who try to view people as people – justice has to be people-centered,” she says. “You need to put the crime survivors and the accused in perspective and see everyone as human. Keeping the people involved in crime as human or honoring the desires of crime survivors should not be a revolutionary concept. ”

Levine highlights the work San Francisco District Attorney Chesa Boudin does on behalf of crime victims as an example of national best practices on this front. Similarly, she credits the Cincinnati and Denver law enforcement agencies with pioneering efforts to protect witnesses.

Levine says she loves Hutson’s approach to the job and says it is great to “work with someone who has signed so many of the best practices reforms that Court Watch Nola advocated.”

Hutson emphasized the safety of inmates and guards alike during her campaign. She is committed to making the sheriff’s office more accountable and transparent in contracting and procedures. To that end, Hutson has repeatedly commented on an ongoing contract problem in Orleans Parish Prison and prisons across the country: inappropriately high levels of telephone conversations with inmates. Hutson is committed to providing free phone calls to inmates and will be taking a closer look at current operator Securus or any other company that gets the next contract. She says phone calls shouldn’t put a burden on inmates or their families, and cites data showing the importance of communicating with family members to rehabilitation and relapse reversal efforts.

Securus has also been criticized by reformers for recording all phone calls made by inmates, even to their lawyers. In her job at CourtWatch, Levine tried to prevent the outgoing sheriff from continuing what she describes as an obviously unconstitutional practice. Gusman and his office have claimed that security issues are the justification for recording calls – but Levine and CourtWatch argued that the prison should do a better job of keeping security without violating inmates’ rights.

Hutson herself won’t take office until early May – but expects that by then she will be busy getting to know the MPs and guards who will now report to her and prepare for an examination of the OPSO books. In the meantime, she vows to continue building social bonds, another key driver behind her loss to Gusman, she says.

She is also monitoring ongoing contract negotiations about who will provide health care in prison. Currently, these services are provided by Wellpath, a for-profit prison services company controlled by private equity firm HIG Capital. Wellpath and Gusman were sued earlier this year for a fatal inmate overdose at OPP, and the company faced similar complaints at other facilities across the country this year, including the Sonoma County lockdown in California and the Suffolk County Jail in Massachusetts. The company is competing with Louisiana State University, which has its medical school campus near the prison, to see who will provide health services in the future. Hutson says she wishes she could be on the selection committee, but since she has only been in office for more than four months, she has to stick to the decision of the city and the current sheriff.

“I’ve been the sole oversight in this male-dominated world for 17 years,” says Hutson. “People are almost always afraid of the mistake and now you also have a woman up there?” Nevertheless, she sees her gender as an opportunity to change the culture at OPP in the awareness of the “misogyny of everyday life”.

She notes that the Orléans Parish Prison system has been a historically hostile environment for women who work or are incarcerated there. Sexual harassment, consideration, the different treatment of male and female inmates – she names a litany of problems in what she calls a “failed institution” under the previous leadership that is prepared for a cultural change: “We take care of them Person and may need to use force – proportionally and as a last resort. We no longer do the warrior mode of law enforcement. ”

San Francisco prosecutor Boudin says developments in New Orleans are a huge step forward – especially given the right-wing backlash against reforming prosecutors. While Boudin highlights the importance of district attorneys as agents of change within the criminal justice system, he also notes that sheriffs are often overlooked in this ongoing effort.

All the more reason to celebrate Hutson’s election earlier this month, says Boudin.

“We as DAs cannot achieve changes that voters deserve and vote for if we go it alone,” he says, adding that “it’s a big step forward for the city and the wider reform movement” when someone like Hutson is willing to take the helm at the OPSO. It is really encouraging, he says, that “in a city like New Orleans, which has such a tough history with the criminal justice system, progress is being made.”

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