Angola prison

Angola Prison is located in West Feliciana Parish, approximately fifty-nine miles northwest of Baton Rouge in the state of Louisiana. 18,000 acres of farmland make up Angola Prison and it is ideally situated as is bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River and by the Tunica Hills on the remaining side.

Angola Prison is operated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections and is currently houses 5,108 inmates. It dates from 1880 where the plantation was bought and named Angola Prison, after the area of Africa where the former slaves came from. It was originally leased to a private firm but was handed over to the state of Louisiana in 1901.

Angola Prison consists of a main housing complex plus five out camps which all contain their own canteen, kitchen, laundry, clothing room and medical and mental health staff. There are three levels of custody at Louisiana State Penitentiary (LSP), maximum, medium and minimum. Minimum custody inmates are assigned maintenance work for the upkeep of the facility and live in a dormitory setting whereas prisoners in maximum custody reside in cells and are monitored by armed security staff. To insure that the prisoners are kept active, maximum and medium custody inmates work approximately eight hours a day on the institutions farmland. LSP produces four million pounds of vegetables each year and maintains a herd of 1,500 cattle. Added to this, the facility also runs a license tag plant, a silk screen shop, print shop, metal fabrication shop, and a mattress, broom and mop factory.

LSP has an 'open-door' policy to the media which makes it quite a unique facility and has resulted in the films 'Dead Man Walking' and 'Monster's Ball' being partly filmed on site. The award winning documentary 'The Farm', the 'Wildest Rodeo in the South' and the LSP magazine 'The Angolite' all add to this facility's prominence in the media.