[Post updated, 9/2/10]

A group of like-minded criminal justice reform advocates is soliciting donations to buy a full-page ad in the Times Picayune next week to protest Sheriff Marlin Gusman’s plan to expand the Orleans Parish jail.

Gusman is proposing a new jail that ultimately will housing about 5,800 people, says the group — up from its existing 3,552 beds. The advocates hope to start a citywide conversation about the proposal by soliciting donations of $22.39 — the daily cost the city pays the sheriff for each inmate. The group also is asking donors to consider what else the city could spend the $22.39 on.

“We’re hearing everything from mental health programs, after school programs, to better street lights and fixing the potholes in the French Quarter,” says Dana Kaplan, executive director of the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, which is headquartering the effort. “I think it really highlights the fiscal tradeoff the city is making when [it decides] to focus on expanding the jail instead of other services.”

The ad will cost $12,000 and is expected to run next week, Kaplan says.

“In just a few days we have had about 250 contributions, and we’ve raised over $5,000 in grass-roots donations,” she says. “I think what we’re seeing is definitely a groundswell of support for reform of Orleans Parish Prison. This is just through email solicitation and word of mouth.

“The donations are coming from all kinds of likely and unlikely allies. We’re seeing contributions from former judges, former city council members, local musicians, average citizens.”

Some private donors have agreed to match the funds raised by the effort. You can make a donate online through  Paypal until the end of today. There’s an anonymous donation button, if you don’t want your name to appear in the ad.

“A jail comfortable for our community needs to be no more than 857 beds,” says Norris Henderson, executive director of Voice of The Ex-Offender (VOTE), which supports the effort. “We’ve been locking people up for convenience.”

According to the group: Currently 3,500 inmates are in the Orleans Parish Prison, 2,700 of whom are “city prisoners.” That represents the highest rate of detention of any urban jail in the country and is three times the national average. There have also been a series of documented civil rights issues with conditions at the jail.

If you are interested in more details, Karen Gadbois at The Lens has been chronicling the city’s efforts to convene a private advisory committee around the jail expansion process.

Sheriff Gusman responded with an emailed statement through his public relations firm, the  Ehrhardt Group. He questioned the statistics cited by  the group, saying “all of the projections from the Juvenile Justice Project and percentages relative to our population are wrong.”

The sheriff wants a smaller, more efficient jail complex, he wrote, pointing out that the pre-Katrina jail complex housed over 7,500 inmates. Although 4,200 beds is still more than the current 3,552 beds.

The statement also focused on the Juvenile Justice Project of Louisiana, writing: “This special interest group’s willingness to allow the current inmate housing situation to continue, while pursuing its own agenda, is short-sighted and a threat to public safety.”

“Demanding an artificially small facility just to satisfy a quest for national comparisons, in other words to wish New Orleans to be safer, is unrealistic and it puts the public’s safety at risk,” Gusman continued.

The full text of the planned ad is pasted, after the jump, along with the text of Gusman’s statement.

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Three years ago, filmmaker Spike Lee and CNN reporter Soledad O’Brien gave video cameras to several New Orleans teens to document their lives in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Brandon Franklin, saxophonist for To Be Continued Brass Band, was one of those children. (2:38 mark) He survived the floodwaters and went on to become a young father and a beloved and widely respected musician and teacher. He was gunned down on Mother’s Day this year at the age of 22.

Although TBC has been one of my favorite brass bands for years, I didn’t know Brandon very well and had only hung out with him a few times in the weeks just prior to his death. Yet writing an article about the loss of this young man has been one of the most difficult assignments I’ve ever faced, harder in some ways even than reporting from Ground Zero after Hurricane Katrina. Before the levee breaches, folks in New Orleans joked after every storm, somewhat morbidly, about how we dodged a bullet, ‘The Big One’ that would surely one day hit and fill our bowl-shaped city with water. Five years after surviving a near fatal wound we, the ‘resilient’ ones, have finally turned a corner in the recovery of our city. But we’re also still dodging bullets that threaten to take out what we’ve fought so vigilantly these last five years to save - a future for New Orleans. We all must commit ourselves to addressing this threat if we’re truly going to redeem this city. Brandon’s story serves as a testimony to what’s worth saving in New Orleans and a portending of darker days should we fail to heed its warning.

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At NOPD headquarters this morning, Superintendent Ronal Serpas introduced a 65-point plan to reform the troubled department and allow citizens to track its progress. You can download your own copy of the report here, but here are a few items of interest.

An outreach program to the growing number of Spanish-speaking residents who settled in New Orleans after the storm:

39. The NOPD in the First Quarter of 2011 will establish an El Protector Program to engage its Hispanic/Latino community. The El Protector Program originated in the California Highway Patrol and was initiated in the Washington State Patrol in 2002, and the Nashville Police Department in 2005. Nashville’s El Protector Program, in February 2009, received national recognition from the Vera Institute of Justice as a “best practice” in reaching across the language divide. El Protector-type programs will enhance the NOPD’s ability to serve the ever changing diversity of our community. The NOPD will also analyze the need for this or a similar program in our Vietnamese community, as well as others that may have language differences.

More cops on bikes, in all districts:

41. The NOPD in 2011 will field Bicycle Units and an expanded Mounted Officer program in the eight Districts. It is well established in Community Policing literature that programs such as these serve to put officers closer to the communities they assist, thus creating better relationships, communication and information sharing.

And — as Serpas told his officers at the meeting this morning — “If you lie, you die”:

44. The NOPD on September 1, 2010 will implement a revised Honesty and Truthfulness policy that will call for presumptive termination, without progressive discipline, for any employee who makes a materially false statement with the intent to deceive. IN PLACE

45. The NOPD on September 1, 2010 will implement a revised False or Inaccurate Reports policy that will call for presumptive termination, without progressive discipline, when an employee knowingly makes, allows or causes to be made, a false or inaccurate oral or written report of an official nature. IN PLACE

There’s more (including a prohibition on cops accepting cash payments for paid details). Get your copy here — and chime in with what you think about it below.

The New Orleans Police Department will have a fully-functioning DNA lab in 18 months, according to NOPD Capt. Michael Pfeiffer, who made the commitment at this morning’s COMSTAT meeting. The city could give no timeline for reopening a DNA lab when Gambit asked the question last week.

Pfeiffer is the department’s crime liaison following the resignation of crime lab manager Anna Duggar last month. The lab is now rehiring DNA technical consultant Anne Montgomery as its manager. Montgomery established the city’s first DNA lab in 2001 before Hurricane Katrina.

Montgomery and Duggar, are both quoted in this week’s Gambit story on the subject: Five years after Hurricane Katrina, the department still has no DNA lab, even the the city has dedicated funds to build one.

Pfeiffer said Montgomery now plans to review the city’s request for proposals to ensure that the city is still seeking the most up to date equipment before reissuing the bid. The last bid was rejected by Mayor Mitch Landrieu’s administration earlier this year on unavoidable technical grounds after a supplier in California unwittingly included the price of shipping — less than $3,000.

In the meantime, investigations and prosecutions of rape and murder cases have been delayed, leaving some of New Orleans’ most dangerous criminals — including possible serial rapists — out on the streets.

A scene from "Scared Straight! New Orleans"

These weekly posts are intended as an episode-by-episode guide to the many psychological ailments, drunken gibberish, senseless actions, Bourbon Street mixed drinks and other embarrassments on MTV’s The Real World: New Orleans.

It contains spoilers — and who cares? You stopped watching this show several years ago — but also a lot of information that might help viewers of the series come to terms with their outrage over the cast’s cultural vandalism of New Orleans (and what was once a really lovely Uptown house), and also the bleak, black future of our society.

The emotional trauma caused by the show admittedly makes such coverage an overwhelming task, so posts may be supplemented by information culled from Wikipedia, WebMD and un-scientific polls of nearby Gambit staffers. Readers are also encouraged to submit any comments that may help us make sense of this wreckage.

In this episode: Ryan bristles at Preston’s toothbrush offense (see what I did there?), Jemmye’s mom makes me uncomfortable, and The Real World tries to make good. Tonight on the Real Househorrors of Dufossat Street …

The toothbrush incident. Remember how we were back in March, still basking in the glow of a Superbowl victory and David Simon’s love? Our shoulders back and our heads held high, not even thinking someone like Ryan Leslie could even exist? That was a happy existence. Then the oil spill happened. Then The Real World happened.

But back in March, there was a sign of things to come. The great oracle Richard Thompson of the Times-Picayune gave us this prophecy: there will be seven strangers, picked to live in a house and have their lives taped. They will stop being polite and start getting real. And someone will have their toothbrush peed on and call the police about it.

Last night the Great Sonicare Showdown had its on-air moment, and I must say it was rather anticlimactic. Here’s what happened: word finally got back to Ryan that his $120 toothbrush was essentially being used as a pregnancy test, and he got all Ryan about and paced around the house like a maniac. So he woke up one day and decided to call the police and “teach Preston a lesson.” He called 911 and even after hearing “What’s your emergency?” proceeded to tell the dispatcher, in complete seriousness, “Someone took my toothbrush, put it in the toilet, and peed on it.” Ryan, while I understand your disgust, toilet germs are nothing compared to the airborne STDs and other maladies you’re likely being exposed to in the Real World house. You’ve probably already contracted herpes from the sheer amount of time you’ve spent on Bourbon Street. And I don’t think you want to see where Hand Grenades come from (hint: it’s not sanitary).

Anyway, this leads me to the NOPD, our notoriously inefficient crime apparatus. While rapists and murderers roam free, committing senseless crimes across the city, the NOPD takes the time to visit the house not once, but twice, in response to this juvenile prank. So if you ever get mugged or your car gets stolen or worse, and you call the police and wonder what’s taking them so long, it might be because they’re busy composing police reports like this. Is Mayor Mitch Landrieu watching this?

Cockroaches. Our housemates were exposed to one of the daily aspects of New Orleans living: dealing with cockroaches. I found it rather symbolic, as The Real World series is like a cockroach in that it will never, ever, ever go away despite our best attempts. Anyway, the cast did what most people do to get rid of a roach — shriek and throw objects in its general direction until a male shows up who’s willing to smother it with a paper towel.

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