Edwin Shorty says securing jail facility is top priority in run for Orleans Parish Sheriff

NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — From your local election headquarters, WGNO is talking to the candidates in the major upcoming Oct. 11 elections.

Good Morning New Orleans anchor LBJ took at look at the race for Orleans Parish Sheriff and spoke to candidate Constable Edwin Shorty.

LBJ: You served as Constable, as an attorney for many years in New Orleans. From those roles, what are you able to bring to the office of sheriff?

“A lot of times, folks focus on the jail but if you recall, after Katrina, the Civil Sheriff and the Criminal Sheriff were merged together. A lot of the sheriff’s job is the civil component, which I do now as Constable handling evictions, handling service of process, issuance of subpoenas. So, that is what we do at the constable’s office, and we do it very efficiently,” said Shorty.

LBJ: The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office has had historically a number of issues going back several sheriffs, if you will. What do you consider to be the biggest issue you would like to tackle walking in the door. What’s the primary issue?

“I think the primary issue that we’ve got to deal with is the issue with the facility. We can’t have a situation where our community, our neighbors, are in fear that someone’s going to leave the facility, who should constantly be under, arrest, who should be incarcerated. So, making sure that the facility is safe is paramount. Before we can get to issues of reduction and recidivism rates, education and all of this, the wraparound services that you want to provide to incarcerated individuals, you’ve got to make sure that the facility is safe,” said Shorty.

LBJ: The May escape, the mistaken release of an inmate, the recent cyber-attack. All of this looms large and it’s a big cloud over this current election. What are some of the things you would have done differently in terms of how that was handled?

“I think if you’re looking at the jail break, the issue is when did you know that you had a jail break? And if you know you’ve got deficiencies, if you know that there’s a problem with cameras in a certain area, then you’re going to put a manpower there to deal with that. That’s going to be an emergency expenditure so that you can make sure that you don’t have blind spots. That’s the thing that I think would have notified me immediately that there would have been a jail break. But immediately after you were notified that there was a jail break, I would have notified the New Orleans Police Department, the State Police and all of our criminal justice partners that there had been a jail break. Just like you get weather alerts on your phone, you can do that with the mug shots and say, ‘These individuals have escaped, I’m notifying the community. Let’s get all hands on deck to make sure that we can catch these people and bring them back to the jail’,” said Shorty.

Watch LBJ’s full interview with Shorty:

Latest Posts