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Louisiana leaders have expressed contrasting opinions on how to handle Louisiana’s nation-leading inmate population as the threat of a coronavirus outbreak looms at prisons and jails. A day after Louisiana Attorney General Jeff Landry sent a letter to Gov. John Bel Edwards advising him against releasing prisoners, the chief judge of the state’s highest court issued guidance urging state judges to work with lawyers and sheriffs to release some pretrial and other types of inmates. Landry described the potential of a “crime wave” caused by the release of prisoners during the health crisis as “disastrous.” Louisiana Supreme Court Chief Justice Bernette J. Johnson’s letter urging the release of certain inmates, written a day after Landry’s letter, said an outbreak of the virus within local lockups could be “potentially catastrophic.” In a letter sent Wednesday to Edwards, Landry said he understood an idea had been floated to release prisoners for their safety. “I strongly believe releasing prisons is not the answer,” he wrote. “To be blunt, Law enforcement resources are not in a position to be monitoring prisoners who have been released, or handling even a minor uptick in criminal activity as as a result thereof.” Criminal justice advocates, public defenders and family members of inmates have called for the release of certain inmates, most those incarcerated for nonviolent offenses, those whose sentences are nearly served or the elderly and those with underlying medical conditions. They have said many jails and prisons are incapable of following precautionary health guidelines because of the nature of the facilities, and keeping people locked up puts inmates at risk. Wendy Matherne, whose son, 28, is serving time at Elayn Hunt Correctional Center in Iberville Parish, said she has also been in touch with other relatives of incarcerated people in the state and has learned how difficult it is for inmates in some facilities to take precautions. Soap is limited for hand washing, dorm-style housing units don’t allow for six feet of social distancing and in some facilities, inmates, including those who may have been unknowingly exposed to the virus, are the ones deep cleaning surfaces, she said. “As a mother, from the moment you find out you’re going to have a child, your job is to take care of that child and protect that child. But as a parent, I am completely incapable of protecting my son,” Matherne said.On Thursday, Johnson advised all state district judges they should “safely minimize” jail populations “where possible.” She asked judges to reexamine jailed people’s cases to determine if they could qualify for even temporary release. “Louisiana has a significantly higher-than-average parish jail population,” Johnson wrote in Thursday’s letter. “An outbreak of COVID-19 in our jails would be potentially catastrophic for jail staff, the families of jail staff, and inmates.”When asked by WDSU about the governor’s response to Landry’s letter, Christina Stephens, a spokeswoman for Edwards, said Friday the administration was “working on this issue with the Department of Corrections and the Louisiana Supreme Court.” Landry’s letter said the Supreme Court’s discussions with lower courts and district attorneys focused on “reasonable means” of mitigating the health crisis. He suggested the release of convicted prisoners from Louisiana Department of Corrections prisons, however, could “create a public safety problem more dangerous than the potential public health issue that exist in our prisons.” “A new crime wave in these perilous times would be disastrous,” Landry wrote. Local jails, which mostly house new arrestees and people awaiting trial, tend to take in new inmates and release them on a much more frequent basis that state prisons, which primarily house convicted felons. The attorney general expressed confidence in the DOC’s plan to mitigate the spread of the disease, adding there had been “no significant outbreak among prisoners at any facility in Louisiana.” Meanwhile, the number of coronavirus cases in jails and prisons in Louisiana grows by the day. A Friday update from the DOC shows 10 state prisoners have tested positive for the coronavirus, along with 17 prison workers. Eight of the ten inmates with COVID-19 were at B.B. Rayburn Correctional Center in Washington Parish. One prisoner at Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish and one prisoner at Dixon Correctional Institute in East Feliciana Parish have tested positive. Nine juvenile prisoners have tested positive for the coronavirus, seven of which are housed at Bridge City Center for Youth in Jefferson Parish, according to a Friday update from the Office of Juvenile Justice. Of the five federal inmates who have died with COVID-19 in custody of the U.S. Bureau of Prison, four were housed at a Louisiana facility, FCC Oakdale in Allen Parish. Arjeane Thompson's boyfriend, who is a diabetic, is housed there and said he and those in his housing unit were told to sleep head-to-foot because their beds are so close together. She said the Bureau of Prisons advising inmates to isolate themselves, but at his "camp," there are dozens of inmates in one large room. "They all were like how the hell are we going to do this? This doesn’t apply to the camp," Thompson said. In New Orleans, two inmates in custody of the Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office had tested positive for the coronavirus, including one who was arrested Thursday night, the OPSO said Friday. A total of 22 OPSO employees also tested positive, though it's unclear how many of them worked in the jail. Seven people on the jail’s medical staff have tested positive. The Orleans Parish Sheriff’s Office last week asked state judges to work with the agency to reduce the inmate population at the Orleans Justice Center so they could separate inmates more and temporarily empty certain cells to disinfect them. The OPSO inmate population has shrunk from about 1,045 on March 11 to 837 as of Friday. Three inmates at the Jefferson Parish Correctional Center had tested positive for the coronavirus as of Thursday, according to the jail’s health administrator. “I’m frustrated, scared,” said the mother of an inmate at Bridge City. She routinely visited her son at the facility every weekend but hasn’t seen him since mid-March because of visitor restrictions. “I can control who can come in and out of my house and who we see and who we don’t see,” she said. “I can’t do that when he’s there.” The mother, who asked not to be named out of privacy concerns, said her son is slated to finish his sentence in a few months.“Let the parents take care of them… Send them home right now until this is over,” she said.