By Blaker Paterson
The Times-Picayune | The New Orleans Advocate
NEW ORLEANS — Orleans Parish Sheriff Michelle Woodfork wants to get New Orleans’ jail out from under its decade-old federal consent decree within her first year in office.
A 197-page report, compiled by a team of court-appointed monitors and detailing conditions at the lock-up under former Sheriff Susan Hutson, shows just how much work Woodfork has ahead of her.
Daily life inside the lock-up, which currently houses 1,451 people — 200 more than it’s supposed to based on a loose cap set by the City Council — appears bleak. There was persistent violence and rampant drug use, according to the federal monitors, who released the report last month. Supervision was lax, with hours-long intervals between required security checks, and the facility had trouble providing basic mental health services.
“The level of violence in the facility continued to be at high levels during this monitoring period,” said the monitors, whose report covers conditions in the jail over a six-month period last year, from July thru December, when Hutson was still in charge. “Serious incidents and harm to inmates continue to occur.”
They noted that a new mental-health wing, known as Phase III of the jail, which will include an infirmary and housing for inmates with acute health issues, will be “an important part of the long-term solution to the lack of compliance” with the consent decree.
Construction on the 89-bed, $92 million project is expected to wrap up in September or October, allowing OPSO to begin utilizing the facility in November or December, according to the latest progress report from the city.
New Orleans’ jail was placed under a court-mandated reform plan, called a consent decree, in 2013 to remedy a slew of constitutional violations. The consent decree lays out 174 provisions that must be met in order to reach compliance and exit the agreement. Monitors submit a report to the court every six months scoring the jail’s performance.
Progress under Hutson’s tenure has been “sporadic,” monitors wrote in the July report. Compliance overall, however, has been on the decline since 2020, when U.S. District Court Judge Lance Africk handed control of the jail back over to then-Sheriff Marlin Gusman, after stripping him of his authority four years earlier in favor of a court-appointed compliance director.
At the time Gusman regained control, the jail was fully compliant with 67% of the provisions. The latest report has the jail fully compliant with just 40% of provisions.
Woodfork, who beat Hutson in last year’s election and took office in May, has said she plans to work collaboratively with the parties involved in the consent decree to achieve compliance.
“The new administration has been diligently working toward sustained compliance with the provisions of the Consent Judgment,” Woodfork’s attorney, John Litchfield, wrote to the court in a June status report. “Her team recognizes OPSO’s constitutional obligations and the importance of maintaining safe, secure, humane, and professionally operated jail facilities.”
Notably, Woodfork has the backing of Attorney General Liz Murrill, who said Wednesday that she’s offered advice to the new sheriff on ways to improve transparency and accountability and believes she’s “moving in the right direction.”
Prosecutors from Murrill’s office secured an indictment against Hutson in April, accusing her of 30 criminal charges including conspiracy, obstruction of justice, malfeasance in office and filing or maintaining false records. Hutson has pleaded not guilty.
“I think she has a lot to fix,” Murrill said of Woodfork. “At the end of the day, I think they will get out of the consent decree and I am working as much as I can to assist in that process.”
Hutson referred questions to her attorney, who wasn’t available to comment before press time.
Woodfork has already faced challenges during her first two months on the job. In early June, a pair of inmates allegedly started a fire using a pile of mattresses, jumpsuits, blankets and Styrofoam plates. Later that month, one inmate assaulted another inside a housing unit with a homemade weapon, resulting non-life-threatening injuries for both.
Woodfork’s hiring of a former NOPD officer who was ousted from the force for misconduct also drew public scrutiny, resulting in his resignation from the Sheriff’s Office.
And on July 27, Saliou Thiam, a 40-year-old, father of two awaiting trial on two counts of first-degree robbery and one count of resisting an officer, was pronounced dead after being found unresponsive in his cell. The Orleans Parish Coroner’s Office hasn’t released a cause of death.
Thiam’s death marked the first in-custody death at the jail since 2023, and Africk, who has overseen the consent decree since its inception, ordered a status hearing two days after the death was announced. That hearing is scheduled for Aug. 18.
Violence, supervision
While the most recent monitors report reflects operations before Woodfork took office, it provides the latest snapshot available of conditions inside the lock-up.
Many of the problems identified in the report boiled down to a lack of supervision and failure by OPSO to follow its own policies and procedures.
A court order requires there be at least one deputy or recruit on a housing unit at a time in order to provide direct supervision. But monitors said staff continued to leave inmates “unsupervised for hours and allow them to have access to materials by which to fashion weapons and bypass the security systems including the locking mechanisms on the cell doors.”
Most inmate-on-inmate attacks happened when there was no deputy present, monitors said.
Monitors pointed to the escape of 10 inmates from the jail in May 2025 as an example of what can happen when there isn’t adequate supervision or frequent security checks. The escape occurred after a staffer assigned to a control module for the unit went to lunch and wasn’t relieved. The escape wasn’t detected for at least seven hours.
“The level of staffing on the night shift and weekends continues to create a dangerous situation,” monitors said.
The Louisiana Legislative Auditor, in a report released in April, flagged similar issues with staffing and security checks leading up to the escape. Hutson’s office, in a 32-page written response attached to the report, said limited staffing hobbled OPSO’s ability to follow its own rules.
OPSO continued to hire staff during the monitoring period, but made little progress due to a large number of terminations, resignations and retirements, monitors said.
There was also “significant slippage” during the monitoring period in the timely reporting of incidents, including drug overdoses, serious injury of inmates and least 70 incidents that “clearly involved a use of force” that weren’t documented as such, monitors said.
The jail documented 488 incidents of inmate-on-inmate assault in 2025, down from 735 incidents in 2024. But monitors said it was “very likely” the decrease was due to underreporting after a cyberattack in October required deputies to handwrite reports.
“The failure to report incidents makes any data collected on institutional violence unreliable,” monitors wrote.
There was significant progress during the reporting period with retrofitting the jails locks, monitors said.
There was also an increase in the number of targeted and random shakedowns resulting in the removal of weapons, pills, narcotics and other contraband. Still, monitors said they encountered inmates smoking marijuana and narcotics in the housing units, and said there is a “significant issue” of staff smuggling in contraband.
There continued to be challenges in “the provision of basic care, staffing and recordkeeping” in the jail’s medical and mental health care, including the need for consistent individual and substance abuse counseling, monitors said.
A requirement that inmates be seen by a mental health provider following a triggering event or use of force isn’t being followed consistently.
Healthcare services at the jail are provided by a private contractor, Wexford Health Sources, Inc. The Pennsylvania -based company took over the contract in June 2024. Wexford didn’t respond to a request for comment.
The New Orleans City Council in May approved a one-year, $24.2 million contract extension with Wexford. City officials said it was needed to give Woodfork time to evaluate the contract.
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