Hundreds of New Orleans residents trying to survive Katrina were criminalized, arrested and jailed for the charge of 'looting.' Prisoners were abandoned in flooded cells for days, while those able to escape their cells were held at gunpoint on an overpass without food or water. Prisoners who've never even been convicted of anything, whose cases and records have been lost, who've posted bail, and those whose release dates have past are still being held illegally. Poorer residents returning to their homes are being arrested for curfew violations and coerced into guilty pleas without due process, lawyers or phone calls and used to clean out the now toxic Orleans Parish Prison... [read more]

Join our call for Amnesty for all arrested & imprisoned for taking of themselves and loved ones during Hurricane Katrina...

NEW!   Why Amnesty?

NEW! CR Case Summaries

Post-Katrina Status of Prisoners & Policing (Critical Resistance)

Louisiana Leads the Nation and the World in Lock Up (Justice Policy Institute)

Prisoner and Jail Releases: A normal part of our system (Justice Policy Institute)

Looters get 15 years in prison
Judge Steps In for Inmates
Sentencing, protests for convicted
Teenage Prisoners Describe Horrors
Black woman won't be prosecuted
Former prisoner rebuilds life
Lives fall through system's cracks
2,500 arrested still in limbo

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