We've docked on St. Francisville this morning. That's in the state of Louisiana. It has a population of 7800 of which 6300 are in jail. You may have guessed, the Louisiana State Penitentiary is here and that's where we ended up this afternoon for a visit. It's a very big place, more like a township. Our bus drove straight into the prison compound for a couple of miles along cattle paddocks, produce fields. Nothing we've seen before. The prisoners are in a series of camps on a 18,000 acres. There are 60 prisoners on Death Row. a very large number of prisoners are in for life, meaning they will never ever be released. They'll die in the prison. The yanks don't namby-pamby their criminals. We could take a leaf out of their books.
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| The Blogger outside Angola Prison |
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| Death Row and Execution Chamber |
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| Kathy is trying the chair for size |
We were taken to the previous death row and execution chambers and then we met some of the lifers who are now mentoring other prisoners to take up trades such as plumbers and builders, although some of them will never be released. Naturally a lot of them have now found god. The end result is the prison has very little violence and is a model to many other US prisons. It was quite an experience.
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| The Angola Prison Farm |
