Why Louisiana's Angola Prison is so dangerous

Men work the fields picking cotton and sugarcane while armed guards on horseback watch over them in the sweltering Louisiana heat. But this is no antebellum plantation — it's the biggest maximum-security prison in the United States, the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola. The prison is located an hour north of Louisiana state capital, Baton Rouge. It started out as an actual plantation where enslaved Black people picked the same crops the prisoners — 74% of whom are Black — do today under similar conditions, per the ACLU Louisiana and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary is named after the slave plantation that existed on that land where the prison now stands. Columbia University explains that the plantation took its name from the nation its slaves were taken from: Angola. In 1880, former Confederate Major Samuel James purchased the plantation and made it into a prison camp, per the Angola Museum. James converted the slave quarters into jail cells, but basically recreated slavery. According to Shane Bauer, author of American Prison, that this was precisely James' aim. He had already established a lucrative prison factory and planned to make a killing at Angola. And, indeed, he did a lot of killing.

Although prison rodeos have been around as early as 1931, none of them have outlasted the Angola prison rodeo in Louisiana. The Angola prison rodeo has been around for over 50 years and remains the only prison rodeo that is still operational and remains known as the "wildest show in the South."

Albert Woodfox, a former inmate at the Louisiana State Penitentiary which is also known as "Angola," died August 4, 2022 at the age of 75 from complications related to COVID-19, as reported by The Guardian. One of the so-called Angola 3, Woodfox was wrongfully convicted in the 1972 of killing prison guard Brent Miller. Though he maintained his innocence, Woodfox spent 43 years in solitary confinement for the crime. After his conviction was overturned, Woodfox pleaded no contest to lesser charges and, in 2016, he was released from prison, as the AP reports. The first place Woodfox chose visit once he was freed adds a touching coda to his story.

Solitary confinement is one of the most brutal punishments an inmate in prison can experience. Under this discipline, inmates are often subjected to isolation for days to maintain order. But there has been controversy around this kind of punishment due to its link to mental anguish, and research suggests it may shorten one's life, as reported by Prison Policy Initiative.