The Louisiana Town Where a Traffic Stop Can Lead to One Charge After Another

We confirmed with municipalities that the data accounted for all court costs and fees as of the date they were provided. Fine amounts for cases that were open when the data was provided may have changed since.

We calculated the average fines and fees for all cases in each town. Gretna had the highest average amount levied: $457 per case. We found this was 67% higher than the average of all the other municipalities’ average per case, which was $273. We also calculated the number of violations per case, not including contempt charges; again, Gretna was the highest, with 2.4 violations per case, compared with an average of 1.4 across the other municipalities.