Associated Press
NEW ORLEANS — The Orleans Parish sheriff has hired the chief of corrections for Orange County, Fla., Michael Tidwell, to run New Orleans’ only jail.
A federal consent agreement required Sheriff Marlin Gusman to hire a professional corrections administrator to bring the jail up to constitutional standards.
Tidwell has spent more than 30 years in corrections management, the last six as Orange County’s corrections chief, according to a news release from Gusman’s department. He has worked in six states as a warden, superintendent, deputy director or director of corrections.
The agreement in December settled a lawsuit brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center and later joined by the Justice Department, which reported last year that it had found “alarming conditions” and persistently high rates of prisoner-on-prisoner violence and staff misconduct in the jail.
In a letter to Gusman last year, a department official accused the sheriff’s office of failing to take basic steps to correct “serious constitutional violations” identified in 2009.
Other changes required by the agreement include better security and staffing and improved mental and physical health care.
Last week, U.S. District Judge Lance Africk rejected Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s request to appoint an independent operator for the jail but did not preclude the city from asking again later.
Landrieu and Gusman have been arguing over who should pay for the reforms, which Africk approved over Landrieu’s objection.
The mayor said the city cannot afford costs estimated at $20 million to $30 million a year. His administration has blamed bad management by Gusman for the jail’s deficiencies.