Mayor of New Orleans Promises to Throw Looters into ANGOLA PRISON

As killer Hurricane Gustav bears down on New Orleans its mayor ordered a sundown curfew and vowed Sunday to throw looters into prison.

More than a million people are fleeing Louisiana to escape the monster storm and an army of 2,000 National Guard officers has moved in to augment local police forces in the seven parishes (counties) in the New Orleans area.

"Looters will go directly to jail," New Orleans mayor Ray Nagin vowed at a Sunday morning press conference.

"You will not get a pass this time. Anyone caught looting in New Orleans will go directly to the Big House in the general population. You will go directly to Angola Prison and God bless you if you go there."

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Tropical force winds are expected to hit New Orleans by Sunday night and Gustav could hit the Louisiana coast by midday Monday bringing tornadoes with it, forecasters say.

For Web Cam and Traffic Cam pictures of HURRICANE GUSTAV as it hits NEW ORLEANS


ANGOLA PRISON

Angola (also known as "The Farm") is the Louisiana State Penitentiary and is estimated to be one of the largest prisons in the U.S. with 5,000 inmates and 1,800 staff members. Located on an 18,000 acre (73 km²) plantation in unincorporated West Feliciana Parish close to the Mississippi border, it is surrounded on three sides by the Mississippi River, making flooding a constant menace.

The land that has become Angola Penitentiary was purchased by Isaac Franklin from Francis Routh during the 1830s with the profits from his slave trading firm, Armfield and Franklin, of Alexandria, Virginia and Natchez, Mississippi as four contiguous plantations. These plantations, Panola, Belle View, Killarney and Angola, were joined during their sale by Franklin's widow, Adelicia Hayes, to Samuel Lawrence James in 1880. The plantation, named after the area in Africa where the former slaves came from, contained a building called the Old Slave Quarters. Samuel James ran the plantation using convicts leased from the State of Louisiana. The State of Louisiana only assumed full control in 1901. In 1916 to save money, all the guards were fired, and selected inmates were used as trustees (similar to Mississippi's Trusty system), a system which led to a great deal of abuse.

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By the 1950s, Angola had degenerated to become one of the very worst prisons in the U.S. In 1952, 31 inmates cut their Achilles' tendons in protest of the hard work and brutality (referred to as the Heel String Gang.) In 1972, a reforming director of corrections was appointed by Governor Edwin Edwards, and the U.S. courts in Gates v. Collier ordered Louisiana to clean up Angola once and for all, ending the Trusty system. Successive wardens have continued the improvements, and Angola is now regarded as a showcase among U.S. penal establishments. Current Warden Burl Cain maintains an open-door policy with the media, which led to the production of the award winning documentary The Farm. Films such as Dead Man Walking and Monster's Ball were partly filmed in Angola.

The film The Green Mile was based on life on death row at Angola in the 1920s.

On August 31, 2008, New Orleans, LA Mayor Ray Nagin stated in a press conference that any New Orleans residents found looting during the evacuation of the city due to Hurricane Gustav, would be arrested and immediately transported to Angola prison.


Today Angola is still run as a working farm; Warden Cain once said that the key to running a peaceful maximum security prison was that "you've got to keep the inmates working all day so they're tired at night."

The prison hosts a rodeo every April and October, and its inmates produce the award-winning magazine The Angolite, available to the general public and relatively uncensored[8] There is a museum which features among its exhibits Louisiana's old electric chair, "Gruesome Gertie", last used for the execution of Andrew Lee Jones on 22 July 1991. Angola Prison is also home to the country's only inmate-operated radio station.

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While Angola was once known as "the bloodiest prison in America", it has made a tremendous turnaround, much of which has been attributed to the influence of faith-based programming. Warden Cain allowed the introduction of Bible studies—most notably Experiencing God—and a significant network of prison churches and mosques. In the 1990s, Angola partnered with the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to offer prisoners the chance to earn accredited bachelor's degrees in ministry. Dr. Bruce M Sabin wrote his doctoral dissertation evaluating moral development among those college students.