A special session that will look at ways to reduce crime in Louisiana will begin on Monday. Metairie Representative Laurie Schlegel has filed bills to strengthen penalties on carjackers and drug dealers who provide fentanyl to minors.
Schlegel is proposing to increase the minimum penalty for carjacking from two years to five years.
“If you think of the crime of carjacking it’s so traumatic, it’s so violent there’s just such a propensity for the victims to be hard, two years is just not enough,” said Schlegel.
Schlegel’s legislation also increases the minimum penalty from 10 to 20 years and increases the maximum to 30 years if the carjacking event results in serious bodily injury. She says the state can no longer be lenient on carjackers.
“The district attorney in New Orleans him and his elderly mother were carjacked at gunpoint and so we are hoping that by increasing the penalties that will send a message that when it comes to carjacking you are going to have a swift and severe penalty,” said Schlegel.