On Saturday, August 27, 2005, two days before Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf coast, Dan Bright was locked inside Orleans Parish Prison (OPP) on what he calls "bull-crap charges." He had been exonerated just a few months earlier, when it was determined that he had been falsely imprisoned for a murder he did not commit. But Bright says that on Saturday, while helping board up his mother's house, he was arrested for trespassing and wound up in central lockup on misdemeanor charges.Sunday was deceptively peaceful, as Katrina whirled closer and New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin issued the first-ever mandatory evacuation of the city. Governor Kathleen Blanco added that the storm was "very serious," and "we need to get as many people out as possible." In spite of this, Sheriff Marlin Gusman announced, "The prisoners will stay where they belong." He had generators, he said, and a loyal staff, so the city's inmates would hang tight.The grouping of buildings that comprise Orleans Parish Prison render it something of a crown jewel in what some call the world's incarceration capital—Louisiana—and at the time of Katrina, one of America's biggest jails. Because OPP earns roughly $25 a day per prisoner from the state, city cops don't do a whole lot of catch-and-release. In August 2005, the majority of OPP's roughly 6,800 prisoners hadn't been convicted of a serious crime. They were people who couldn't pay traffic tickets, drunk tourists who'd pissed on Bourbon Street, kids caught smoking pot. The robust jail and regressive criminal justice policies made for a perfect storm for what was to come.
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