Louisiana adopted the 85% law in response to the Violent Offender Incarceration(VOI) and Truth-in-Sentencing Incentive Grants. The VOI portion of the grant only required a State to insure its violent offenders serve a "substantial portion" of their sentence. (See, RAND National Evaluation of the Violent Offender Incarceration?Truth-In-Sentencing Incentative Grant Program, Final Report, 2001 at xxxvi).

According to the GAO findings, Louisiana indicated that the grants were a key factor in passing the VOI/TIS (85%) law. (RAND, at 65). Unlike other States that admitted they would have passed (TIS/VOI) laws without the grant because they had a legitimate interest in public safety and reducing violent crime rates, Louisiana did not assert any State interest in passing the 85% Law.

Under the grant, Louisiana received a one-time $50 million dollars in 2001, and no other funding thereafter. (Rand Report at 65.) So, why is Louisiana still enforcing the 85% law, when it continues to adversely impact interest of real substance, such as high incarceration rate, exorbitantly high correctional expenditures and Louisiana's inability to keep the public safe, a concerned echoed by former Louisiana State Representative, Joe Lopinto. He said, "The bottom line is, if locking everybody up and throwing away the key works, then we should have the lowest crime rate in the United States however, we don't".

Undoubtedly, the 85% law is the major reason for the exorbitantly high and costly incarceration rate. After the effective date of the 85% law in January 1997, Louisiana's prison population has more than doubled because more people are serving longer sentences. This whipping increase in the prison population is partially responsible for $321million increase in correctional expenditures. Data from the Louisiana Department of Corrections (pre-Govenor Edwards) shows that Louisiana spent approximately $757.4 million annually on Public Safety and Corrections operations.

In Louisiana, if 100 prisoners were to be released on parole after serving 50% of ten years, Louisiana could save $6,804,000 in five years, cutting the cost from $16,524,000 for 100 prisoners serving 85%. Today, persons convicted of violent crimes and serving 85% toppled the chart with 53.1% of the total geriatric population in the state.

This senseless waste of taxpayers dollars was not lost on Louisiana State Representative, Patricia Smith, who said, "The cost of caring for elderly offenders are a substantial burden on the taxpayers. The longer you keep offenders in the system, the more it costs the State." Espousing a similar view, Senator Danny Martiny said, "If they no longer pose a threat and can work--we don't want them getting out and just being a further burden on the public, then, yes, it makes sense to parole them."

Why not parole them after serving 50%. Since 1997, the effective year of the 85% law, many offenders have already served twenty plus years. The percentage that a former prisoner, recidivating after serving twenty years in prison, is extremely low, about one percent.

Thus, repealling the 85% law would not only benefit the prisoner, or the State of Louisiana overall, it would also reunite children with their incarcerated parents. In Louisiana, the number of childen who have an incarcerated parent tops 94,000, about 8 percent of the state's youth population, and that is a conservative estimate as it doesn't include children whose parents are imprisoned but didn't live with them prior to their incarceration.

In "Family Sentence" written by Richard A. Webster and Jonathan Bullington, the mini-series expose ways the criminal justice system is failing families. The series notes, "How law enforcement and the courts don't always recognize that the people they arrest, prosecute and sentence are more than suspects: often they are mothers and fathers." Punishing the parents for violating the law, directly punishes the child for their parents mistakes and this is a problem.

For months, years and decades, parents lanquish in jails and prisons, across the country, while their children lanquish in destructive states and cycles of existence, such as: lacking parental guidance, dropping out school, abusing drugs, enduring teenage pregnancy, affliating with gangs, living homeless, commiting crime, entering foster-care. The social ills these children suffer are carefully documented, and the harmful effects will continue unabated unless great citizens create support systems to raise these children to be become healthy adults.

This problem is not new to well-respected Judge Madeline Landrieu of the Louisiana's 4th Circuit Court of Appeal, who spoke out against this problem. She said, "These kids are lost to us and the system says, 'We can't do anything about it.' And I want to say, 'It's our responsibility to do something about it,'" Landrieu said. "These are our kids, and these kids are growing up to become adults, and society depends on healthy adults for it to function. You have to have more healthy adults than unhealthy adults. You have to have more un-incarcerated people than incarcerated people." Times-Picayune, pubished by NOLA.com, 2018.

And we can do something about it in Louisiana. We can unite incarcerated parents with children by repealling the 85% law, once and for all. Support this endeavor to repeal the 85% law by encouraging others to sign this petition.

The people and organization who have the power to effectively repeal the 85% law are collectively: the Louisiana Legislative Body, Louisiana Sheriffs Association, Louisiana District Attorney Association, and Governor John Bell Edwards.

This petition was authored by Ronald Marshall, Author.