Livingston transitional work release program closes, funneling 30+ inmates to Baton Rouge

A privately owned Livingston Parish transitional work program recently closed, funneling more than 30 inmates to an East Baton Rouge facility, officials said.

Lock5 operated a 150-bed facility off U.S. 190 in Walker on Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office land near the Waste Management landfill. The company had been running the transitional work release program through a contract with the Sheriff’s Office since January 2018. 

Lori Steele, spokesperson for the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office, said Lock5 had recently contacted the office to let them know “they were closing the doors.” There were no details available about why the company was shutting down the program.  

A phone number for Lock5 had been disconnected. Other attempts to reach the owner for comment were unsuccessful. 

The state Department of Corrections pays a certain amount of money per diem to the Livingston Parish Sheriff’s Office to house DOC inmates at the local detention center.

The Lock5 program closed on March 24. Steele said 47 inmates were transported out-of-parish; 32 of those inmates were placed at the East Baton Rouge Transitional Work Program, according to EBRSO spokesperson Casey Rayborn Hicks. Others were transferred to a program in DeQuincy, according to a representative who answered the phone at Louisiana Workforce, LLC.

Lock5 was the only work release program in Livingston Parish and had a history of escapes during its short contract with the Sheriff’s Office.

In July 2019, one inmate walked off his landscaping job before being recaptured hours later. Several months prior, an inmate abandoned a construction job in Denham Springs and was captured days later in St. Amant.

A different inmate escaped in December 2018 and was able to drive to Lacombe, where he broke into the home of his estranged wife and child and pushed his wife to the floor. He was later arrested on felony home invasion and felony domestic abuse and child endangerment. 

Two months before that, a participant in the program died from head injuries he sustained during a construction accident.