deucedeuce said:
LOL, they still have hard labour.
fyi:
Angola is the
Louisiana State Penitentiary and is estimated to be the largest
prison in the
U.S. with 5,000 inmates and over 1,000 staff. Located on an 18,000 acre (73 km²) plantation close to the
Mississippi border, it is surrounded on three sides by the
Mississippi River, making flooding a constant menace.
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,
Armfield and Franklin, of
Alexandria, Virginia and
Natchez, Mississippi as four contiguous plantations. These plantations, Panola, Belle View, Killarney and Angola, were joined during their sale by Franklin's widow, Adelicia Hayes, to Samuel Lawrence James in
1880. Samuel James ran the plantation using convicts leased from the State of
Louisiana. The State of Louisiana only assumed full control in
1901. In
1916 to save money, all the guards were fired, and selected inmates were used as trustees, a system which led to a great deal of abuse.
By the 1950s, Angola had degenerated to become one of the very worst
prisons in the U.S. In
1952, 31 inmates cut their
Achilles' tendons in protest of the hard work and brutality. (referred to as the Heel String Gang) Conditions improved—only to worsen again in the 1960s as the corrections budget was cut.
In
1972, a reforming director of corrections was appointed by Governor
Edwin Edwards, and the U.S. courts ordered Louisiana to clean up Angola once and for all. Successive
wardens have continued the improvements, and Angola is now regarded as a showcase among U.S. penal establishments. 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 and
Monster's Ball were partly filmed in Angola.
Indeed, Angola is still run as a working farm, and 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."
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 free to publish whatever it chooses. There is also a museum which features among its exhibits Louisiana's old
electric chair, "
Gruesome Gertie", last used for the execution of
Andrew Lee Jones on
22 July 1991.