New Louisiana law that undoes mug shot restrictions can affect livelihoods, advocates say

Getty Images

A new law in Louisiana undoes the progress the state has made in restricting the release of mug shots for people accused of non-violent crimes, say criminal justice reform advocates and the New Orleans public defenders’ office.

Act 281, signed by Gov. Jeff Landry, went into effect Aug. 1 and essentially repeals a 2022 measure signed by then-Gov. John Bel Edwards. The 2022 law had barred law enforcement agencies from releasing mug shots except in certain instances.

Act 281 is one of several tough-on-crime laws passed by a conservative state legislature this year. Among them are laws to treat 17-year-old offenders as adults and bring back the electric chair . Advocates and the public defenders’ office say that Act 281 violates people’s privacy and threatens their access to housing, jobs and other necessities.

“We know that mug shots in and of themselves are extremely prejudicial,” said Sarah Whittington, advocacy director for the Justice and Accountability Center of Louisiana. “And the way that they’ve been used in the past have really marked people.”

The Justice and Accountability Center is a legal services, policy advocacy, and public education organization that helps people who are returning home from prison or jail. Whittington said that Act 281 going into effect is “unfortunate” because of the digital footprint left behind. She said that people’s pictures are forever associated with criminality.

“Even in a system where we are innocent until proven guilty,” Whittington said. “The mug shot acknowledges that this person has been arrested and booked into a facility and charged with a crime, and regardless of the outcome of that crime, they will forever be associated with a crime and law enforcement.”

SUBSCRIBE: GET THE MORNING HEADLINES DELIVERED TO YOUR INBOX

Bruce Reilly, deputy director of Voice of the Experienced (VOTE), a New Orleans nonprofit that advocates for the rights of people who are incarcerated, said the new law challenges the concept of innocence until proven guilty.

“As soon as you’re arrested, they’re quick to throw you out,” Reilly said. “It’s putting a lot of faith, too, in police officers, it’s putting a lot of faith in those who call the police…there’s a lot of people that call the police that aren’t all that factual, and yet, people are going to take it as gospel as soon as it gets put into the media.”

Whittington added that mug shots are visual representations of arrests and that the 2022 law was an effort to ensure that mug shots would not be released unless they served a public safety purpose. Verite News emailed the bill’s sponsor, Sen. Alan Seabaugh R-Many, for comment but did not receive a response by publication time.

In Louisiana, someone who is arrested but ultimately has their case dismissed can have their record expunged under certain circumstances. But when material about the initial arrest, including a mug shot, is published to the internet, those records can be harder to get rid of, Whittingon said.

“None of that touches the internet,” Whittington said. “None of that touches the media newsprint. So unfortunately, a lot of those mug shots then, even with a simple Google search, can still be a detriment to people years down the road…and it impacts their employment, their housing, relationships with neighbors.”

People who have been arrested have lost housing, job and educational opportunities because their mug shot appeared in a newspaper article, Lindsey Horenstine, deputy chief administrative officer and communications director for the Orleans Public Defenders, told Verite News .

Hortenstine also said that it is hard to ignore the part race plays in the public display of mug shots.

“That’s where you see a lot of racial bias, a lot of implicit bias and I think that it’s harmful to the overall well-being of a community,” Hortenstine said. “I think the use of mug shots historically has been a direct driver of…this really important idea of a Black ‘superpredator’ and just used as fear-mongering.”

Whittington said that while the public may not know the full impact of Act 281 for a while, the law makes it harder for people to recover from false arrests.

Benched Baton Rouge judge accepted $14,000 stipend just before investigation

Hortenstine said that in the past, she has run into problems with journalists who publish mug shots and other information about people who are later found out to be wrongfully arrested or accused.

“If it was important enough for you [the reporter] to report on it in the first place, it should be important enough that you follow up and then make the correction,” Hortenstine said.

And she added that mug shots can hang over people who have been released from prison.

“They should be able to have a fresh start [when released],” Hortenstine said. “They should be able to resume and rebuild that life, but this now will hang over them and will follow them forever.”

Reilly said that the signing of Act 281 into law by Landry this year demonstrates the fickle nature of reform.

“If anything, the precedent is that reforms are only as strong as the paper they’re written on, because you can just reverse it like a year later,” Reilly said.

This article first appeared on Verite News and is republished here under a Creative Commons license.