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NOLA Life Stories: How Effective Are Angola's Reformation Methods?

The Louisiana State Penitentiary has more than 6,000 prisoners on 18,000 acres.
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The Louisiana State Penitentiary has more than 6,000 prisoners on 18,000 acres.

Prisons are built on the supposition that time, discipline and routine transform inmates into new people. Nelson Davis has lived with this idea since 1980, when he arrived at the Louisiana State Penitentiary to fulfill a life sentence.

His days are spent between the prison’s kitchens and self-help programs, which structure his reformation. But how effective are these methods? Davis reflects on his time away from society with oral historian Mark Cave.  

Click here for Nelson Davis' account of life in at Angola.

Davis earns 14 cents an hour to work as a cook at the Louisiana State Penitentiary. This interview was conducted by Mark Cave forThe Historic New Orleans Collectionand produced forWWNOby Thomas Walsh. 

Copyright 2016 WWNO - New Orleans Public Radio

Thomas Walsh is an independent radio producer for WWNO. Each week he works to produce new editions of Louisiana Eats and All Things New Orleans, as well as Notes From New Orleans, The Farmer's Market Minute, and The Green Minute. Outside WWNO, Thomas is a volunteer disc jockey for WTUL, where he hosts a weekly live four-hour program broadcasting twentieth century classical music. Thomas has four years experience in audio engineering, and a BA from Trinity University in San Antonio where he double majored in communications and philosophy. Someday he will give away his entire collection of Grateful Dead concerts, which has swelled to unnecessary proportions in recent years.
Mark Cave