# What is a police jury?

> A police jury is the elected board that governs most Louisiana parishes, combining legislative and executive powers that other states split between a county commission and an executive branch. The name is a holdover from French and Spanish colonial rule. Counties are called Parishes in Louisiana.

**By:** Bentley Hensel  
**Published:** 2026-07-16  
**Updated:** 2026-07-17  
**Canonical:** https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-police-jury  
**License:** CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/)  
**Cite as:** Bentley Hensel (2026). What is a police jury?. Kingfish. https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-police-jury

---

Everywhere else in America, the level of government between the city and the state is a county. Louisiana has parishes, and in most of them the governing body is a police jury. The name throws people off, so start there.

### Why "parish," and why "police"

Louisiana was a French and then a Spanish colony, both officially Roman Catholic, and local administration was organized around church parishes — the ecclesiastical districts a priest could reasonably cover. When the United States bought Louisiana in 1803, [those parish boundaries were already the map people used.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parishes_in_Louisiana?ref=kingfish.la)

The territorial legislature divided the [Territory of Orleans](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Territory_of_Orleans?ref=kingfish.la) into 12 counties in 1805, but the counties never fit the way people actually lived, and in 1807, the legislature reorganized [the territory into 19 parishes based on the old church boundaries.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_parishes_in_Louisiana?ref=kingfish.la) The name stuck. Louisiana and Alaska are the only two states that do not call their primary divisions counties.

"Police" is the other piece that confuses modern readers. It does not mean law enforcement. It comes from the French and Spanish sense of "police" as the general administration of a community — roads, order, public works, the ordinary machinery of local government. A "jury of police" was a body of citizens charged with running local affairs. The term was formally attached to Louisiana's parish governing bodies in 1811, shortly before statehood, when the jurors became elective rather than appointed.

The origin has a dark side worth stating plainly: among the earliest duties assigned to these bodies was the regulation of slavery, including the capture of people who escaped it. The institution has changed beyond recognition, [but honest history includes where it started.](https://64parishes.org/entry/police-juries-adaptation?ref=kingfish.la)

### What a police jury does

A [police jury](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_jury?ref=kingfish.la) is unusual in American government because it holds both legislative and executive power. There is no separate elected parish executive. The jurors pass the ordinances, adopt the budget, and run the departments that carry them out. As Dr. Henry Sirgo, a McNeese State University political science professor, told KPLC: "It's actually more like the British Parliament than it is like the state government or the U.S. government in that we don't have separation of powers."

In practice, a police jury's core work is the unglamorous infrastructure of parish life, particularly in the unincorporated areas outside city limits:

-   Building and maintaining parish roads and bridges
-   Drainage and flood control
-   Solid waste disposal
-   Fire protection districts, recreation, and parks
-   Adopting the parish budget and levying voter-approved taxes
-   Passing ordinances and regulations for the unincorporated parish
-   Housing the courts and the offices of other parish officials

The [Police Jury Association of Louisiana](https://www.lpgov.org/?ref=kingfish.la) states that police juries "exercise over fifty different functions and powers, including road and bridge construction and maintenance, drainage, sewerage, solid waste disposal, fire protection, recreations and parks." [Modern police juries hold broad authority to act,](https://winnparishjournal.com/police-juries/?ref=kingfish.la) as long as the action is legal and, where required, approved by the parish's voters.

### Police jury versus home rule charter

[Not every parish uses a police jury.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_jury?ref=kingfish.la) The 1974 Louisiana Constitution (Article VI) lets a parish write and adopt its own "home rule charter" — essentially a local constitution — that can replace the police jury with a different structure. The common alternatives are a council-president system (a separately elected legislative council and parish president), a council-manager system (an elected council that hires a professional manager), and consolidated city-parish government.

According to the Police Jury Association of Louisiana, "38 of state's 64 parishes operate under the Police Jury form of government. The other 26 parishes operate under a form of home rule charter." (Some other sources, including Wikipedia and 64 Parishes, put the split at 41 and 23; the discrepancy appears to turn on how transitional or hybrid parishes are counted.) In general, rural parishes have kept the police jury, and parishes with large cities or fast-growing suburbs have tended to switch — though several parishes with sizable cities, including Rapides (Alexandria), still use it. [Wikipedia](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Police_jury?ref=kingfish.la)

### How jurors get elected

Parishes are divided into districts (historically called wards), and each district elects one juror. Board size varies with population, from a handful of members in small rural parishes to fifteen or more in large ones. Jurors serve four-year terms. The jurors elect one of their own as president to preside over meetings and serve as head of parish government.

Louisiana runs these races, like most of its elections, on the open-primary system in odd-numbered years, meaning any voter can vote for any candidate regardless of party.

* * *

**Accountability box: The police jury**

-   **What it is:** The traditional governing body of a Louisiana parish, holding both legislative and executive power. Authorized under Article VI of the Louisiana Constitution and the general laws of the state.
-   **Who serves / how many:** Elected jurors, one per district; board size varies with population (from around five to fifteen or more).
-   **Who elects them:** Voters of each parish district, by open primary.
-   **Term length:** Four years; jurors elect a president from among themselves.
-   **Budget / revenue:** Varies by parish; funded by property and sales taxes, fees, and state and federal funds, all subject to annual audit by the Louisiana Legislative Auditor.
-   **When and where it meets:** Set by each parish; meetings are public under the Open Meetings Law with notice and agenda posted at least 24 hours ahead.
-   **Where agendas/minutes are posted:** At the parish's principal office and typically on its website; minutes are public records.
-   **How to request records:** Written request to the parish custodian of records under [La. R.S. 44:1 et seq](https://legis.la.gov/legis/Laws_Toc.aspx?folder=118&title=44&ref=kingfish.la).

---

## Citation formats

### BibTeX

```bibtex
@misc{kingfish-what-is-a-police-jury,
  author = {Bentley Hensel},
  title = {What is a police jury?},
  year = {2026},
  publisher = {The Kingfish Project},
  howpublished = {\url{https://kingfish.la/what-is-a-police-jury}},
  note = {Accessed: July 18, 2026. License: CC BY 4.0}
}
```

### CSL-JSON

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