A report by the New Orleans-based Metropolitan Crime Commission found that the New Orleans Police Department's policy to focus less on minor nonviolent offenses resulted in a dramatic decrease in arrests during the second half of 2010.

Jon Wool, director of Vera's New Orleans office, "said the share of summonses [instead of arrests] has risen steadily this year, in part because of a City Council move in December to make marijuana possession a municipal crime. Marijuana possession alone results in about 2,000 arrests annually, and police are now writing summonses in about 60 percent of those cases, he said."