The Louisiana State Penitentiary (also known as
Angola and "The Farm") is a
prison farm in
Louisiana operated by the
Louisiana Department of Corrections. The prison is the
largest maximum security
prison in the
United States
with 5,000 inmates and 1,800 staff members. It is located on an
18,000 acre (73 km²) property that was previously the Angola and
other plantations owned by
Isaac Franklin in
unincorporated
West Feliciana Parish, close to the
Mississippi border. The prison is located at the terminus of
Louisiana Highway 66, and the prison is about 22 miles (35
km) northwest of
St. Francisville
Angola is surrounded on three sides by the
Mississippi River.
Burl Cain is the warden.
History
The land that has become Angola Penitentiary was purchased by
Isaac Franklin from Francis Routh during the 1830s with the
profits from his
slave trading firm,
Franklin and Armfield, of
Alexandria, Virginia and
Natchez, Mississippi as four contiguous plantations. These
plantations, Panola, Belle View, Killarney and Angla, were
joined during their sale by Franklin's widow, Adelicia Cheatham,
to Samuel Lawrence James in 1880. The plantation, named after
the area in Africa where the former slaves came from, contained
a building called the Old Slave Quarters.
Samuel James ran the plantation using convicts leased from them
which led to a great deal of abuse.
A former Angola prisoner, William Sadler (also called "Wooden
Ear" because of hearing loss he suffered after a prison attack),
wrote a series of articles about Angola entitled "Hell on
Angola" in the 1940s which helped cause prison reform.
Collier's Magazine, in one issue, referred to Angola as
"the worst prison in America."
In 1952, 31 inmates cut their
Achilles' tendons in protest of the hard work and brutality
(referred to as the Heel String Gang.)[7]
In 1972,
Elayne Hunt, a reforming director of corrections, was
appointed by Governor
Edwin Edwards, and the U.S. courts in
Gates v. Collier ordered Louisiana to clean up Angola
once and for all, ending the
Trusty system.
Current Warden
Burl Cain maintains an open-door policy with the media,
which led to the production of the award winning documentary
The Farm.
Films such as Dead Man Walking
nd
Monster's Ball were partly filmed in Angola.
In the 1980s
Kirksey McCord Nix Jr. perpetrated the "Angola Lonely
Hearts" scam from within the prison.
In 1993 LSP guards fatally shot 29-year old escapee Tyrone
Brown.
In 1999 six inmates who were serving life sentences for
murder took three prison guards hostage in Camp D. The hostage
takers bludgeoned and stabbed one guard, 29-year old Captain
David Knapps, to death. Armed guards ended the rebellion by
shooting the inmates, killing one, 26-year old Joel Durham, and
seriously wounding another.
In
Stephen King's book
The Green Mile and the adapted movie
The Green Mile,
the fictional setting of the Louisiana
Cold Mountain Penitentiary was loosely based on life on
death row at Angola in the 1930s.
On August 31, 2008,
New Orleans mayor
Ray Nagin stated in a press conference that any New Orleans
residents found looting during the evacuation of the city due to
Hurricane Gustav would be arrested and immediately
transported to Angola.
Angola, being remote and blocked by a river on three sides,
with no easy main access, serves a purpose of detention for
inmates but also presents some challenges. From the west access
is via the
Angola Ferry. This ferry is reportedly for employees of the
prison with no listed schedule or other information. Located
east of
Lettsville, Louisiana there is no direct access from the
town. Travelers must make a loop north or south on U.S. 1. North
on U.S. 1 to LA 15/LA 970 then south on LA 418. Passing through
Torras and Torras Landing to LA 3190 and the ferry. The east
side of the river is referred to as Angola Landing and LA 3190
stops at the beginning of Angola roads. From the south travelers
cross the St. Francisville Ferry into St. Francisville then
north on U.S. 61. Just north of the community of Bains travel
northwest on LA 66 (the Tunica Trace) and at the LA 969 fork
stay left on LA 66. At this point La 66 curves south and then
loops back north through Tunica to Angola.
The property of the prison is about the size of
Manhattan
The Main Prison Complex consists of the East Yard and the West
Yard. The East Yard has 16 minimum and medium custody prisoner
dormitories and one maximum custody extended lockdown cellblock;
the cellblock has long term extended lockdown prisoners,
in-transit administrative segregation prisoners, inmates who
need mental health attention, and protective custody inmates.
The West Yard has 16 minimum and medium custody prisoner
dormitories, two administrative segregation cellblocks, and the
prison treatment center. The treatment center has geriatric,
hospice, and in-transit ill prisoners.
LSP also has several outcamps. Camp C includes eight minimum
and medium custody dormitories, one cellblock with
administrative segregation and working cellblock prisoners, and
one extended lockdown cellblock. Camp D has the same features as
Camp C, except that it has one working cellblock instead of an
extended lockdown cellblock, and its other cellblock does not
have working prisoners. Camp F has four minimum custody
dormitories and the "Dog Pen," which houses 11 minimum custody
inmates. Camp J has four extended lockdown cellblocks, which
contain prisoners with disciplinary problems, and one dormitory
with minimum and medium custody inmates who provide housekeeping
functions for Camp J. The Reception Center contains the
death row, with 101 extended lockdown cells housing
condemned inmates. In addition it has one minimum custody
dormitory with inmates who provide housekeeping for the
facility.
The inmate library services are provided by the Main Prison
Library and four outcamp libraries. The prison is a part of an
inter-library loan program with the
State Library of Louisiana.
Point Lookout Cemetery is the prison cemetery, which was
formed after a 1927 flood destroyed the previous cemetery, which
was located between the current Camps C and D. In September 2001
a memorial was dedicated to the unknown prisoners. The original
Point Lookout, with 331 grave markers and an unknown number of
bodies, is full. An annex opened in the mid-1990s. Before
January 2002, all state prisoners unclaimed by families were
buried at Point Lookout; during that month a cemetery opened at
the
Hunt Correctional Center, providing another place for
burial. The fire station houses the LSP Emergency Medical
Services Department staff, who provide fire and emergency
services to LSP. The Front Gate Visiting Processing Center, with
a rated capacity of 272 persons, is the processing and security
screening point for visitors to the prison.
St. Augustine Church, built in the early 1950s, is staffed by
the
Roman Catholic Church. The New Life Interfaith Chapel was
dedicated in 1982.
In the 2000s the main prison church, the churches for Camps C
and D, and a grounds chapel were constructed. A staff and family
of staff chapel, as of 2010, is under construction. Outside
donations and prison rodeo ticket sales funded the churches.
The United States Postal Service operates the Angola Post
Office on the prison grounds.
The facility includes a
group of houses, called the "B-Line,
which function as the residences of the prison staff members and
their families; inmates perform services for the staff members
and their households. The employee housing includes recreational
centers, pools, and parks.
In 1986 around 200 families of employees lived within the Angola
property. Hilton Butler, who was then the warden of Angola,
estimated that 250 children lived on the Angola property.
Residents on the prison grounds are zoned to
West Feliciana Parish Public Schools. Elementary school
children attend Tunica Elementary School,
located in proximity to Angola.
Secondary schools serving the LSP grounds are West Feliciana
Middle School and
West Feliciana High School.
Today
Angola is still run as a working farm; Warden Cain once said
that the key to running a peaceful
maximum security prison was that "you've got to keep the
inmates working all day so they're tired at night."
Of all American prisons, Angola has the largest number of
inmates on
life sentences in the United States. As of 2009 Angola had
3,712 inmates on life sentences, making up 74% of the
population. Per year, 32 inmates die, while 4 are paroled during
the same span of time.
As of 2009 about half of the prison guards are female.
The prison hosts a
rodeo
every April and October, and its inmates produce the
award-winning magazine The Angolite, available to the
general public and relatively uncensored.
Angola Prison is also home
to the country's only inmate-operated radio station.
In the
1990s,
Angola partnered with the
New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to offer prisoners
the chance to earn accredited bachelor's degrees in ministry.
Dr. Bruce M Sabin wrote his doctoral dissertation evaluating
moral development among those college students.
Radio
Angola is the only penitentiary in the U.S. to be issued an
FCC license to operate a radio station. KLSP (Louisiana
State Penitentiary) is a 100-watt radio station
that operates at 91.7 on the FM dial from inside the prison to
approximately 6,000 potential listeners including inmates and
penitentiary staff. The station is operated by inmates and
carries some satellite programming. Inside the walls of Angola,
KLSP is called the "Incarceration Station" and "The Station that
Kicks Behind the Bricks."
In 2002, the station left the airways because of old,
dilapidated equipment. A fund-raiser was broadcast from inside
the prison to radio stations in North and South Carolina (WLFJ,
WRTP and The His Radio Network), Georgia (WVFJ, WLFS and WAFJ),
Missouri (WIND) and Florida (WJIS and The Joy FM Network) that
raised $120,000 to rebuild KLSP. His Radio Operations Manager
Ken Mayfield led the team and the rebuild of the station.
The prison has held many musicians and been the subject of a
number of songs. Folk singer
Leadbelly served over four years of his attempted murder
sentence and was released early from Angola for good behavior.
Tex-Mex artist
Freddy Fender was pardoned from there.
The song "Grown So Ugly" by American blues musician and
ex-convict
Robert Pete Williams references Angola. The song's lyrics
have some basis in fact, as Williams was imprisoned there and
was officially pardoned (from a murder charge) in 1964, the year
the song says that he left the prison.
The classic
New Orleans song "Junco Partner" includes the lines:
Six months ain't no sentence, and a year ain't no time
They got boys down in Angola doin' one year to
ninety-nine
Singer
Gil Scott-Heron wrote and recorded the song "Angola,
Louisiana" on his 1978 album with
Brian Jackson, Secrets. The song deals with the
imprisonment of inmate
Gary Tyler.
Comprising the entire B-Side of his album
Remedies, New Orleans musician
Dr. John features an extended 17:35 song titled "Angola
Anthem".
Singer-songwriter
Myshkin recorded "Angola" in 1998 for her album Blue Gold.
The song refers to the case of former Angola warden
C. Murray Henderson, who was sentenced to 50 years in Angola
prison for the attempted murder of his wife, writer Anne Butler:
Release me from this life I will seek my punishment
On the other side but the judge said
"Warden in cold blood you shot your poor poor wife
You're going back to Angola, there your hell to find"
New Orleans rap artist
Juvenile has part of a verse in the
Hot Boys song "Dirty World" that says:
They'll plant dope on ya, go to court on ya
Give ya 99 years and slam the door on ya
Angola, the free man bout it, he don't play
Nigga get outta line, ship 'em to Camp J
New Orleans pianist
James Booker mentions Angola prison in his cover of "Goodnight,
Irene" ; where he was sent for heroin possession:
Lead Belly and little Booker both, had the pleasure of
partying,
on the pon de rosa, *laughs* you know what I mean, you
dig?
Yeah, on the pon de rosa, you know, down in Angola
where they have boys doing from one year to ninety nine
(As Booker was less than 10 years old when Leadbelly died,
they would not have been there at the same time.)
Ray Davies has recorded a song entitled "Angola (Wrong Side
of the Law)", which was released as a bonus track on the
expanded release of
Working Man's Café in February 2008.
The American folk singer
David Dondero in the song "20 years" describes the
experiences of a prisoner released from Angola prison:
All I got on me, is my Angola prison I.D.
Ain't a place in this whole damn city willing to hire me
It's been twenty years
Jazz trumpeter
Christian Scott has a track on his 2010 album Yesterday
You Said Tomorrow called "Angola, LA & the 13th Amendment"
