Angola Penitentiary

Marianne Fisher-Giorlando

The Louisiana State Penitentiary (LSP) at Angola houses approximately 5,000 men and is arguably the South's most infamous prison. Commonly called Angola, this prison was one of the South's most cruel and brutal prison farms in the 19th and early 20th centuries. More recently, it has become the oldest maximum-security prison ever accredited by the American Correctional Association. Angola is a prototype of the Southern plantation model of imprisonment. It was first used as a prison in 1880 when the prisoner lessee S. L. James purchased the land from Isaac Franklin's widow and transferred prisoners there from the old walled penitentiary in Baton Rouge. Franklin had been one of the largest slave traders in the South. Angola was only one of seven plantations in the estate at the time of the purchase; the estate consisted of 10,015 acres. Although it is commonly thought that the Louisiana State Penitentiary was named ...

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