At a recent New Orleans City Council meeting, Jon Wool, director of Vera's New Orleans office, discussed the progress the city has made so far in improving the city's criminal justice system.

Jon Wool said the group is in the process of moving marijuana misdemeanors to municipal court, and they're also looking at how it's determined who should stay in jail before trial and who shouldn't.

“Most modern jurisdictions use data driven risk analysis to determine who must be kept in jail after their arrest and who can be released safely to the community,” Wool said. “In New Orleans we do not have such a system. Rather, the two factors that determine whether somebody remains in the prison are pretty simply their assets, whether they have enough money to pay bail and their access"