600 Freed From Crowded Louisiana Prisons
Nearly 600 state prison inmates were given their freedom just after midnight Thursday under pressure from the federal courts to ease overcrowding in Louisiana’s lockups.
Most inmates appeared happy to be free, but some complained about the way they were released and about the midnight hour.
Robert Dennis Hage, a convicted rapist, said he was taken to a Baton Rouge Greyhound terminal after being given $20 by the Corrections Department.
“There was no organization in all of this,” Hage said. “You get $20 and they say: ‘There’s the door.’ I’ve already spent $5 here for a skimpy breakfast.”
He was in the first contingent of prisoners to be released under a law that allows early freedom for inmates with good behavior records.
The law is one of the few approved by a reluctant Legislature to ease overcrowding in a system that has more than 12,000 people in nine institutions, with 4,000 held temporarily in parish jails awaiting space in state lockups.
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