Louisiana Jail Data

An automated scraper that collects inmate roster data from Louisiana parish jails and police departments using GitHub Actions.

Updates

April 24th, 2026: Updated to fix the encryption, to instead make it a cypher. This allows us to compare encrypted names / encrypted dates of birth across time. We also condensed the past 30+ days of downloads with the previous rosters. This gives us 7,000,000+ records.

What it does

Every day at 6:00 PM CST, the GitHub Actions workflow scrapes inmate roster tables from 72 Louisiana parish jails and police departments listed in links.csv. This includes 61 out of 64 parishes and 11 municipal jails. Scraped data is saved as a timestamped CSV in the downloads/ folder and committed to the repo. Sensitive fields (Name and DOB) are encrypted using RSA public-key encryption before being committed. If you need this information, please contact me at eappelson@laaclu.org.

Note

This data includes both those held pretrial and post-conviction. Additionally, historical rosters were scraped from here, and the resulting dataframe is saved in downloads as rosters.rds. Sensitive data is hashed.

Files

script.py: Scrapes all jails and encrypts sensitive columns before saving
encrypt.py: Encryption utility
decrypt.py: Decrypts CSVs locally using the private key
jail_scraper.r: Scrapes data from the past year saved here.
links.csv: List of 80 jail roster URLs with associated jail names
.github/workflows/main.yml: GitHub Actions workflow that runs the scraper

Warning

This code should NEVER be replicated or repurposed to scrape and track individuals held in jail. This project exists solely for research and accountability purposes. Do not misuse this code or data to monitor, target, or surveil incarcerated individuals.

Parish Breakdown

Last updated: 2026-07-29 02:11 UTC

Total inmates (latest scrape): 26,914 across 72 parishes/jails

Acadia Parish

Total: 159

Race	Count	%
White	91	57.2%
Black	67	42.1%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.6%

Allen Parish

Total: 121

Race	Count	%
White	75	62.0%
Black	42	34.7%
Unknown	2	1.7%
American Indian/Alaska Native	2	1.7%

Ascension Parish

Total: 501

Race	Count	%
Black	265	52.9%
White	200	39.9%
Unknown	32	6.4%
Asian/PacificIslander	4	0.8%

Assumption Parish

Total: 150

Race	Count	%
Unknown	83	55.3%
White	67	44.7%

Avoyelles Parish

Total: 352

Race	Count	%
Black	199	56.5%
White	150	42.6%
Unknown	3	0.9%

Beauregard Parish

Total: 176

Race	Count	%
White	120	68.2%
Black	56	31.8%

Bienville Parish

Total: 43

Race	Count	%
White	22	51.2%
Unknown	21	48.8%

Bogalusa Police Department

Total: 14

Race	Count	%
White	8	57.1%
Black	6	42.9%

Bossier City Police Department

Total: 57

Race	Count	%
Black	40	70.2%
White	17	29.8%

Bossier Parish

Total: 1,121

Race	Count	%
Black	632	56.4%
White	487	43.4%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.1%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.1%

Caddo Parish

Total: 1,711

Race	Count	%
Black	1,293	75.6%
White	392	22.9%
Unknown	26	1.5%

Calcasieu Parish

Total: 1,108

Race	Count	%
Black	615	55.5%
White	451	40.7%
Unknown	41	3.7%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.1%

Caldwell Parish

Total: 600

Race	Count	%
Black	385	64.2%
White	199	33.2%
American Indian/Alaska Native	15	2.5%
Unknown	1	0.2%

Cameron Parish

Total: 19

Race	Count	%
White	19	100.0%

Catahoula Parish

Total: 128

Race	Count	%
Black	91	71.1%
White	36	28.1%
Unknown	1	0.8%

Claiborne Parish

Total: 660

Race	Count	%
Black	410	62.1%
White	250	37.9%

Concordia Parish

Total: 809

Race	Count	%
White	457	56.5%
Black	352	43.5%

DeSoto Parish

Total: 118

Race	Count	%
Black	72	61.0%
White	45	38.1%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.8%

East Baton Rouge Parish

Total: 1,336

Race	Count	%
Black	1,046	78.3%
White	228	17.1%
Unknown	59	4.4%
Asian/PacificIslander	2	0.1%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.1%

East Feliciana Parish

Total: 279

Race	Count	%
Black	183	65.6%
White	94	33.7%
Asian/PacificIslander	2	0.7%

Evangeline Parish

Total: 155

Race	Count	%
Black	92	59.4%
White	62	40.0%
Unknown	1	0.6%

Franklin Parish

Total: 844

Race	Count	%
Black	560	66.4%
White	280	33.2%
Unknown	4	0.5%

Hammond Police Department

Total: 23

Race	Count	%
Black	15	65.2%
White	7	30.4%
Unknown	1	4.3%

Iberia Parish

Total: 470

Race	Count	%
Black	282	60.0%
White	176	37.4%
Unknown	6	1.3%
Asian/PacificIslander	5	1.1%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.2%

Iberville Parish

Total: 50

Race	Count	%
Black	32	64.0%
White	18	36.0%

Jackson Parish

Total: 1

Race	Count	%
Unknown	1	100.0%

Jefferson Davis Parish

Total: 162

Race	Count	%
White	84	51.9%
Black	75	46.3%
American Indian/Alaska Native	2	1.2%
Unknown	1	0.6%

Jefferson Parish

Total: 1,188

Race	Count	%
Black	760	64.0%
White	422	35.5%
Unknown	6	0.5%

Kinder Police Department

Total: 2

Race	Count	%
White	2	100.0%

LaSalle Parish

Total: 75

Race	Count	%
White	51	68.0%
Black	23	30.7%
Unknown	1	1.3%

Lafayette Parish

Total: 837

Race	Count	%
Black	551	65.8%
White	272	32.5%
Unknown	14	1.7%

Lafourche Parish

Total: 763

Race	Count	%
Black	389	51.0%
White	370	48.5%
American Indian/Alaska Native	3	0.4%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.1%

Leesville Police Department

Total: 3

Race	Count	%
White	2	66.7%
Black	1	33.3%

Lincoln Parish

Total: 365

Race	Count	%
Black	272	74.5%
White	90	24.7%
Unknown	3	0.8%

Livingston Parish

Total: 835

Race	Count	%
White	596	71.4%
Black	228	27.3%
Unknown	8	1.0%
Asian/PacificIslander	2	0.2%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.1%

Madison Parish

Total: 155

Race	Count	%
Black	124	80.0%
White	30	19.4%
Unknown	1	0.6%

Morehouse Parish

Total: 207

Race	Count	%
Black	152	73.4%
White	55	26.6%

Natchitoches Parish

Total: 183

Race	Count	%
Black	139	76.0%
White	41	22.4%
Unknown	3	1.6%

Oakdale Police Department

Total: 4

Race	Count	%
White	4	100.0%

Opelousas Police Department

Total: 1

Race	Count	%
African American	1	100.0%

Orleans Parish

Total: 1,380

Race	Count	%
Black	1,182	85.7%
White	174	12.6%
Unknown	21	1.5%
Asian/PacificIslander	3	0.2%

Ouachita Parish

Total: 1,337

Race	Count	%
Black	892	66.7%
White	429	32.1%
Unknown	16	1.2%

Plaquemines Parish

Total: 659

Race	Count	%
Black	428	64.9%
White	207	31.4%
Unknown	13	2.0%
Asian/PacificIslander	9	1.4%
American Indian/Alaska Native	2	0.3%

Pointe Coupee Parish

Total: 117

Race	Count	%
Black	71	60.7%
White	43	36.8%
Unknown	2	1.7%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.9%

Rapides Parish

Total: 1,045

Race	Count	%
Black	661	63.3%
White	367	35.1%
Unknown	15	1.4%
Asian/PacificIslander	2	0.2%

Red River Parish

Total: 41

Race	Count	%
Black	21	51.2%
White	19	46.3%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	2.4%

Richland Parish

Total: 708

Race	Count	%
Black	490	69.2%
White	209	29.5%
Unknown	6	0.8%
Asian/PacificIslander	3	0.4%

Sabine Parish

Total: 185

Race	Count	%
White	106	57.3%
Black	76	41.1%
Unknown	2	1.1%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.5%

Shreveport Police Department

Total: 36

Race	Count	%
Black	27	75.0%
White	9	25.0%

St. Bernard Parish

Total: 227

Race	Count	%
Black	132	58.1%
White	90	39.6%
Asian/PacificIslander	3	1.3%
Unknown	2	0.9%

St. Charles Parish

Total: 183

Race	Count	%
Unknown	106	57.9%
White	77	42.1%

St. Helena Parish

Total: 45

Race	Count	%
Black	31	68.9%
White	13	28.9%
Unknown	1	2.2%

St. James Parish

Total: 75

Race	Count	%
Black	62	82.7%
White	13	17.3%

St. John the Baptist Parish

Total: 221

Race	Count	%
Unknown	146	66.1%
White	75	33.9%

St. Landry Parish

Total: 126

Race	Count	%
Black	84	66.7%
White	40	31.7%
Unknown	2	1.6%

St. Martin Parish

Total: 210

Race	Count	%
Black	104	49.5%
White	98	46.7%
Unknown	8	3.8%

St. Mary Parish

Total: 289

Race	Count	%
Black	155	53.6%
White	133	46.0%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.3%

St. Tammany Parish

Total: 888

Race	Count	%
White	454	51.1%
Black	391	44.0%
Unknown	41	4.6%
American Indian/Alaska Native	1	0.1%
Asian/PacificIslander	1	0.1%

Sulphur Police Department