With the Orleans Parish Sheriff's Department around 60 percent staffing for the jail, the parish lockup is essentially strained to capacity.
Sheriff Susan Hutson says her office is just now getting into the logistics of the inmate population, and what they can do to take some of the pressure off.
"There's a lot more work we can do about population," Hutson told WWL's Newell Normand.
Normand said if new Superintendent Ann Kirkpatrick brings even a five percent improvement in arrest efficiency, the sheriff will be deep underwater.
"You will never be less than the max number of inmates that you have in your facility," said Normand.
Hutson said they're working to identify inmates she says do not need to be locked up.
"We've got a bunch of misdemeanors," Hutson said, "people who will be in here for things like theft, sometimes it's like criminal damage, some stuff like that, that ordinarily you're going to serve very little time and keep moving."
Hutson said a lot of arrestees in New Orleans end up languishing in jail because they cannot afford bail.
