Angola
Way back in 1996 I was living in New Orleans when I went to see the Angola Prison Rodeo, which is held every year, every weekend in October. I went back the next week with my camera and a press pass. Took some nice pictures I thought. Years later i was reading a story in The New York Times
The face looked familiar. It was the man in the first photograph of the slide show below.
Nineteen years in prison till DNA found him innocent. Go figure. The rodeo itself was wild.
Events you'd never see in a normal rodeo. I think the inmates actually want to be injured. Injury means hospital, and that means not having to work the fields. Angola is in Louisiana on a bend of the Mississippi on eighteen thousand acres of prime farmland. I believe the prison runs at a profit as a result on the inmates hard work. If you behave yourself you get to go in the rodeo as a reward. You get to sell your handicrafts to the public. You might make a friend. You might break a leg.
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