Outgoing Democrat Louisiana Gov. John Bel Edwards has pardoned 56 inmates, including 40 convicted murderers, since October, according to Fox News.
In recent months, the governor has made an effort to reduce the population of the state’s overcrowded prisons, with 1,094 people per 100,000 being in some form of incarceration, according to Fox News.
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“For as long as I can remember, Louisiana reflexively responded to an increase in crime by putting more people in prison and keeping them there longer,” Edwards told NOLA.com in an interview this week. “We’ve never been made safer as a result of that.”
“There is no data to suggest that an increase in crime here was because of the reforms.”
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