New Orleans Police Department

The New Orleans Police Department (NOPD) has primary responsibility for law enforcement in New Orleans, Louisiana. The department's jurisdiction covers all of Orleans Parish, while the city is divided into eight police districts. The NOPD has a long history of civil rights violations, corruption and poor oversight. Since 2012, the NOPD has been in a federal consent decree where it has to implement sweeping reforms to address a wide array of structural problems identified by the U.S. Department of Justice in a 2011 report. History After New Orleans was founded by French colonists in 1718, the policing of the city was done by military forces. These were alternating French, Spanish and French under differing governmental rule. The formation of the New Orleans Police Department was first recorded in 1796, during the administration of Baron Francisco Luis Héctor de Carondelet. The account said, "Crime had reached such proportions by the mid-1790s that a full-time city police force was required."