As a younger New Orleans police officer, I discovered that nothing we did mattered with out the belief of the folks we served. Belief opens doorways, cools sizzling scenes, and brings witnesses ahead.
Later, as a prison court docket decide, I noticed how skilled coordination between NOPD and federal companions—the FBI, DEA, ATF, and the U.S. Lawyer’s Workplace—might carry essentially the most complicated instances throughout the end line to justice.
So I do know that multi-agency efforts can work. However I don’t consider Nationwide Guard troops ought to patrol New Orleans neighborhoods.
Let’s begin with the information. After a generational excessive in 2022, New Orleans turned a nook. Murders fell sharply in 2023 and dropped once more by roughly a 3rd in 2024, whereas nonfatal shootings and carjackings have been reduce dramatically—about half in lots of year-over-year comparisons.
By 2025, NOPD experiences violent crime persevering with to fall at a double-digit tempo, with murders down considerably even accounting for the New 12 months’s Day mass-casualty assault. Briefly: from the 2022 peak to immediately, the town has moved from disaster into an prolonged interval of decline in essentially the most critical offenses.
Over 5 years of New Orleans Crime Coalition surveys, the curve has bent the appropriate manner. After a interval of heightened nervousness, the flip started in early 2023 and has since gathered tempo towards stability and clear enchancment. Extra residents now say crime is getting higher or holding regular, and satisfaction with NOPD is climbing.
The College of New Orleans Survey Analysis Heart’s High quality of LifeSurveys observe the identical shift: crime has eased as the town’s dominant fear, folks report feeling safer at evening, and rankings of police safety are trending up.
Policing alone isn’t liable for these features.
Group rooted crime prevention initiatives, together with violence interrupters, youth mentorship, and restorative mediation which have expanded with current federal assist, construct sustainability. However continued funding for these confirmed finest practices is in danger.
We do not want the Nationwide Guard patrolling our streets. But when a restricted deployment is ordered, it ought to be tightly scoped, time-bound, and civilian-focused—constructed to multiply NOPD’s effectiveness with out placing troopers into law-enforcement roles.
Historical past counsels restraint. In New Orleans, Guard activations have been non permanent and mission-specific—defending the town through the 1979 NOPD strike, two Tremendous Bowls, and offering important longer-term safety and assist after Hurricane Katrina.
These deployments have been tightly outlined, coordinated with civil authorities, and wound down as quickly because the second handed. That ought to stay the mannequin.
If deployed, listed here are 4 issues the Guard ought to do.
1. Free sworn officers to combat violent crime.
On a provisional foundation, Guard personnel can assume non-law-enforcement duties that preserve too many officers off the road: report-taking hubs for non-emergencies, proof consumption and transport, fleet and facility assist, visitors management at preplanned occasions, and scene safety for main incidents.
Each hour shifted to the Guard is an hour an NOPD officer can spend on gun violence, carjackings, and repeat-offender instances.
2. Surge logistics and know-how the place they matter.
Use Guard capability for operations assist—staging and shifting gear, sustaining communications, increasing software of know-how, and accelerating repairs to vital public-safety infrastructure (lighting, cameras, fencing, signage).
Maintain this work squarely on the infrastructure aspect, the place it amplifies police work with out blurring roles.
3. Unclog the justice pipeline with JAG help.
The Guard’s JAG Corps can help—inside authorized limits and below native supervision—with the executive grind that slows justice: discovery group logistics, digital-evidence dealing with, docket administration, and witness scheduling.
Executed proper, this helps the DA and Public Defender transfer backlogs, shorten time-to-trial, and make room for essentially the most critical instances. (JAG assist ought to be administrative and process-focused—not prosecuting civilians.)
4. Assault the locations that invite crime—via environmental crime prevention.
Deploy models to illegal-dumping sweeps in New Orleans East, clear and restore playgrounds and parks, trim sightlines, patch fencing, and relight darkish corridors—coordinating with Sanitation, Parks & Parkways, and Public Works.
That is preventive policing by different means: cleaner, brighter, well-kept blocks scale back alternatives for crime and restore group confidence.
These roles include situations. A Guard mission ought to be time-limited and designed for a fast off-ramp as civilian capability recovers according to the Guard’s previous, non permanent activations for discrete missions in New Orleans.
The selection earlier than us just isn’t between doing “nothing” and sending troops to patrol neighborhoods. The selection is between performative power and efficient crime prevention. Maintain the Guard in reserve—and if they’re deployed, use them the place they add capability with out crossing into policing.
Keep disciplined. Again NOPD with the companions, instruments, prevention packages, and focused assist which can be producing progress—and renew, deepen, and develop them.
That’s how we end the job and be secure.
Arthur L. Hunter, Jr., an occasional contributor to The Lens, is a former New Orleans Police Division officer, retired Orleans Parish Prison District Court docket decide, and – most not too long ago – a candidate for mayor.
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