Sorry I don't have stats, but a significant percent of Louisiana local and state prisoners are in jail for drug offenses. Is getting caught with a roach a second or third time really that much worse? What about crack, which is addicting as hell. Does putting that person in person at a cost of $25/day to the state accomplish anything? Do repeat offenders deserve life without parole, as required by Louisiana law?
Picking up trash, cutting grass, and other manual labor, yes. Maybe not even jobs. Make it community service, but give them a strong incentive to attend, like free breakfast and lunch.
This problem with New Orleans, and the rest of Louisiana, isn't going to turn around without an outside the box solution. Our current penal system isn't working, as evidenced by the multiple posters on here who claim the crime problem is getting worse or hasn't changed. No one has claimed that it's improving. We owe it to ourselves to try something different.