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Angola Prison

A photo shows the sun beaming above silhouettes of two people holding a board while another person constructs a wall of a makeshift prison cell.
Closing Argument August 10
‘Deliberate Indifference’: Court Rulings Challenge Extreme Heat Conditions in Prisons
“If it’s 103 outside, it may be 107 to -8 inside of your cell,” said a man who worked in the fields while imprisoned in Texas.
By
Raymond Flanks, a Black man, and Cassandra Delpit, a Black woman, embrace each other by Lake Pontchartrain.
Life Inside July 26
Love Beyond Bars: Raymond and Cassandra
Raymond Flanks spent nearly 39 years in Louisiana lockups for a murder he didn’t commit. Luckily, he found love with an old friend, Cassandra Delpit.
Photographs by Camille Farrah Lenain
As-told-to by
An incarcerated man, wearing a gray sweater and blue pants, places a basket of harvested turnips onto a cart. Prison farm workers, wearing blue uniforms, are standing in a field in the background.
Closing Argument June 22
The New Battle Over an Old Institution: Forced Prison Labor
Inside the latest legal and legislative efforts to close state constitutional loopholes that allow slavery as punishment for a crime.
By
A barbed wire fence surrounds a tan-colored building.
Closing Argument September 23, 2023
Juvenile Detention Centers Face One Scandal After Another
Despite repeated efforts at reform, allegations of mistreatment mount at youth facilities across the country.
By
A photo shows the silhouette of a prison tower, trees and lamp posts against an orange sunset.
Closing Argument July 22, 2023
‘Concrete Coffins’: Surviving Extreme Heat Behind Bars
Record temperatures in much of the U.S. threatening more people in prisons.
By
An illustration shows a Black man in a white T-shirt with his arms around an older Black woman in a polka-dotted shirt and an older Black man in a newsboy cap and black T-shirt. The left side of the illustration shows a freeway, with trees at the edge of the road.
Life Inside May 12, 2023
My Brother Was Wrongfully Convicted for Murder. 20 Years Later, So Was My Son.
Although it was a coincidence, I knew it wasn’t a mistake. What Louisiana was doing to men like my brother Elvis and my son Cedric was intentional.
By Earline Brooks Colbert, as told to
A Black man wearing a red T-shirt that reads “No kids in Angola” shouts during a protest at the Louisiana state Capitol against the state’s decision to house some youth at the adult prison Angola.
Inside Story February 2, 2023
When Kids Are Punished Like Adults
Louisianans protest temporary youth housing in notorious Angola, and Bryan Stevenson speaks on sentencing reform.
By and
A group of people walk through a dark hallway with prison cells on either side.
Feature June 9, 2022
Rethinking Prison Tourism
Many former prison sites draw on the spooky and salacious to entertain visitors. But some are having second thoughts.
By Hope Corrigan
Life Inside July 29, 2021
A Filthy New Orleans Jail Made My Son Sick. The ‘Cruel and Unusual’ Medical Treatment at Angola Prison Killed Him.
This spring, a judge ruled that the healthcare at the Louisiana State Penitentiary violated prisoners’ Eighth Amendment rights. Lois Ratcliff tells the horrifying story of her son Farrell’s decline and death.
By Lois Ratcliff as told by
Prisoners from the Ferguson Unit picking cotton outside of Huntsville, Texas, in 1968. The unit was named after James E. Ferguson, a governor in the 1910s with a troubled record of condoning anti-Mexican violence.
News July 29, 2020
Will The Reckoning Over Racist Names Include These Prisons?
Many prisons, especially in the South, are named after racist officials and former plantations.
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