Johnny Traweek was supposed to be released from prison on May 3, 2018, but it wasn't until 19 days later that he was actually freed. Traweek did nothing behind bars to extend his sentence. The Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections simply hadn't processed his paperwork in time to release him on his release date.
Traweek's story—brought to the broader public's attention by The New York Times yesterday—isn't an anomaly. "Roughly 200 inmates are held beyond their legal release dates on any given month in Louisiana, amounting to 2,000 to 2,500 of the 12,000 to 16,000 prisoners freed each year," the Times reports. "The average length of additional time was around 44 days in 2019, according to internal state corrections data obtained by lawyers for inmates—and until recently, the department's public hotline warned families that the wait could be as long as 90 days." One inmate the Times talked to served an additional 18 months due to a paperwork snafu.
