BATON ROUGE, La. – On Tuesday evening, a poll conducted by JMC Analytics was released showing broad bipartisan support in Louisiana for the core tenets of the 2017 bipartisan criminal justice reform package signed into law by Governor John Bel Edwards.  

The poll showed that 70% of Louisiana voters—including 63% of Republicans—believe it is more important for our criminal justice system to reduce the recidivism rate than it is to incarcerate non-violent offenders for longer time periods. The poll also showed that 83% of Louisiana voters—including 77% of Republicans—believe we should make it easier for previously incarcerated Louisianans to find employment.  

“This poll proves that the broad bipartisan support for criminal justice reform in 2017 has not changed among Louisiana’s voters,” said Governor John Bel Edwards. “Our reform focused on reducing recidivism by lowering the number of non-violent, non-sex offenders in our prisons and investing the money saved into job training, juvenile justice initiatives, victims services, and re-entry programs run by respected community organizations like Goodwill, United Way and Catholic Charities. Conservative and non-partisan experts agree that our bipartisan criminal justice reform was a success, and that by focusing criminal justice system resources on violent offenders who pose a threat to public safety, our reform helped our criminal justice system during the nationwide increase in violent crime following the COVID-19 pandemic. There is too much crime, and we have more work to do. The people of Louisiana know that the way to reduce crime is to continue the bipartisan, data-driven, smart on crime approach we have taken.”

View the poll here.