News Angola 3 media coverage

One might get the impression from the review of Wilbert Rideau’s “In the Place of Justice” (June 13) that the racism and plantation brutality of Angola prison in Louisiana are largely a relic of the past. But there are two black men, now in their 60s, who have been in solitary confinement for nearly 40 years because of their political activities in behalf of prison reform. They were almost certainly framed for the murder of a white prison guard back when Angola was known as the bloodiest prison in the South, and when armed prisoners and sexual slavery were normal and encouraged, as the review of Rideau’s book points out.

Bordered on three sides by the Mississippi River, the Louisiana State Penitentiary is the biggest prison in the United States. They call it The Farm.

In 1972, three men in a Louisiana prison were placed in solitary confinement after a prison guard was murdered. Two of them are still there – even though many believe they are innocent.

Convicted of murder in a deeply flawed trial, Herman Wallace has spent nearly 37 years in solitary confinement. Will new evidence finally lead to his release?