Well, that works both ways, by and large the idea to use improved education and living standard as a means of raising people above criminal tendencies has some merit to it, though rarely as much as was hoped for, but you can flip that the other way, less crime can just as easily, and often more dirctly, result in higher standards of living and such.

By and large spending on cops, jails, and military tends to be very beneficial for the public health. Remember this is the state that basically turned into one big prolonged disaster area a few years back up to and including gangs of murderous thugs and looters, the public tends to demand action, regrettably not always especially wise action, I've no idea if they've gone over the top there or not. In either event, any area of spending by public sector is nominally for the public health, education tended to be pushed through on the idea that educated people would be healthier both by healthier action as intelligent people and greater wealth from increased productivity. Spending on military, specifically Nat Guard, is essentially trying to maximize disaster relief responses, ditto police and jails with the added health advantage of not being murdered in your home by a violent criminal. There's obviously a point of diminishing returns, but one shouldn't assume every dollar removed from funding hospitals actually means a dollar more of sickness, sticking that into safer roads with rumble strips and more cops on the beat will see some down turn in people ending up in the ER from car accidents or crimes. More cops tends to see less gang activity which has some effect on education, especially since kids who get injured, jailed or killed from them tend to get poor grades. So there is a certain logic in it, obviously you can only pump so much cash into one area though before you'd start getting better effects by putting it into another. I've no idea if that's the case in Louisiana though.