BATON ROUGE – A House bill requiring the Department of Public Safety and Corrections to publish prison data on its website advanced 59-32 Monday with no debate.

House Bill 525, authored by Rep. Barbara Carpenter, D-Baton Rouge, would require the Corrections Department to upload to its website accessible data about deaths that occurred within prison populations, state prison demographics and trends, and interactive dashboards on prisoner release.

Also included in the mandated data requirements is the number of individuals housed in pre-trial detention and with the United States Immigration and Customs Enforcement.

The bill calls for data to be updated on an annual basis and uploaded on the department’s website no later than 30 days after the end of each month. No personal information protected under state and federal law would be released.

“HB 525 is a straightforward transparency bill,” Carpenter said on the House floor.

The bill relates to other data-transparency legislation regarding crime that has advanced with ease in the current legislative session.

A bill by Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, would allow local media outlets to be alerted about an improperly released inmate. That bill advanced unanimously on the House floor and is pending Senate Judiciary B consideration.

In an earlier Administration on Criminal Justice Committee meeting, Jonathan Vining, executive counsel for the Department of Public Safety and Corrections, said data encompassed under Carpenter’s bill has already been published.

Mary-Patricia Wray, a member of Gov. Jeff Landry’s transition team and an adjunct faculty member at Tulane Law School, stated that codifying the practice of publishing prison data will ensure transparency and continuity.

“Administrations change, as we all know,” Wray said.

As written, the bill states that enforcing data transparency will allow the public timely access to correctional system data in a uniform and consistent manner.

“I get the transparency. I’m still not inclined to believe that we need it in statute,” Rep. Debbie Villio, R-Kenner, said in the previous committee meeting.