Tangipahoa Parish

141,346 people, served by 10 police agencies that report to the FBI. Below: how a case moves here, from arrest to court.

How a case moves here

Tangipahoa Parish follows Louisiana law on arrests, release, and courts. These rules are the same in every county in the state; the full set covers prosecutors, defense, and jails too.

Who decides release first: District judges and their commissioners, city and parish judges, mayor's courts, and justices of the peace can all set bail within their limits. In the largest parishes, an appointed commissioner usually sets bail first. For charges on a court's bail schedule, the jail can accept bail at the scheduled amount with no judge, unless the person asks for a special order.
La. C.Cr.P. art. 314 La. C.Cr.P. art. 315 La. C.Cr.P. art. 313
Time to see a judge: A person held after a warrantless arrest is entitled to a probable cause decision by a magistrate within 48 hours, which may be made on paper. The jail must bring the person before a judge for appointment of a lawyer within 72 hours, not counting weekends and holidays. The judge may set or review bail then.
La. C.Cr.P. art. 230.1 La. C.Cr.P. art. 230.2
Money bail: Louisiana allows money bail, and a person charged with a crime is entitled to bail except in listed cases. Act 354 of 2026 bars bail again for a person who skipped court or forfeited bail while out on a firearm or sex offense charge, and limits bail after conviction.
La. C.Cr.P. art. 312 Résumé digest, Act 354 (SB 93), 2026 Regular Session
Courts: District courts try felonies, and each of the 64 parishes has one; Orleans Parish has a separate criminal district court. City and parish courts hear misdemeanors, and many small towns have mayor's courts for ordinance violations. Justices of the peace have very limited criminal jurisdiction.
Louisiana State Bar Association, Court Structure La. Const. art. V, secs. 15, 20
Judges and magistrates: Voters elect district judges to six-year terms, and a district judge must have practiced law in Louisiana for at least eight years. City and parish court judges are also elected to six-year terms and must be lawyers. Justices of the peace and mayors who run mayor's courts are elected and need not be lawyers.
La. Const. art. V, secs. 22, 24 Louisiana State Bar Association, Court Structure

Read from the statutes and court rules cited, 2026-09-30. Some of this is medium confidence and still being checked. Parishes stand in for counties; the run_by value county sheriff means the parish sheriff. Judges run in an open primary with party labels; we count that as partisan. Commissioner offices exist only where a special statute creates them (Orleans, East Baton Rouge, and others); which parishes have them was not checked. The bail articles were renumbered by Acts 2026, No. 354; article numbers follow the legislature's site on 2026-09-30.

What this county does differently

Nothing county-specific yet

Whether Tangipahoa Parish runs a pretrial services office, uses a risk assessment, or has its own bail schedule appears here once a cited source says so.

Police agencies

Agencies: FBI NIBRS master file 2025 batch headers; names from the FBI agency list, pulled 2026-09-29. An agency that serves several counties appears on each. Population served is the FBI's figure.

Crime and arrests

No figures yet

Reported offenses and arrests for Tangipahoa Parish, counted by the agencies that serve it, appear here once the county series is published. NIBRS reporting here started as early as January 2003.