Published on: Saturday, October 1, 2022
Filmed at Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, The Visiting Room Project contains 100 interviews with prisoners serving life sentences without parole, and allows the public to watch and listen to the men tell their stories in their own words (interview and article available here).
Louisiana's prisons today hold thousands of people with life sentences and no possibility of parole. 73% of all inmates serving life sentences at Angola are Black. Many are older than 50. The aging population meant many prisons needed to establish hospice programs, mainly staffed by fellow prisoners who are also serving life sentences.
Angola's first prison cemetery is full. They built a second one but that's almost at capacity, too.