CCC's inmate population falls

Since 2005 the Caddo Correction Center's population has been around 1,500. However, last week numbers fell to 1,019, that's below capacity. It also means big savings for the parish. Caddo Administrator Woody Wilson says it cost $54,000 a month to house inmates. The savings haven't been released.

"We're doing an analysis right now, but we've already seen some trends in the reduction of the feeding costs, transportation costs, and medical costs," Wilson said.

He says the sheriff's office, commissioners and judges have worked for years to bring the inmate population down. Wilson attributes success to possible lower crime rates and rock docket. That's a system to speedup the process for pretrial detainees.

"The judges get together, and they review all the cases," Wilson explained. "They kind of accelerate the processing of the cases through the court system for us."

The correctional center's population shot up in 2005 when inmates from southern parishes were relocated there due to Katrina. Wilson says the local population also increased.

"The population went up to 1,500, " he said. "Over the years since 2005, we've had a high number. Even though a lot of cases were not Katrina related, the population stayed up."

Wilson says the parish will continue to decrease the center's population.