i had so many thoughts leading up to this assignment as to what it was gonna be like. trying to imagine going down this road, knowing it s a one-way trap. there s this moment when you get this last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steal match. louisiana s highway 66. it s a beautiful countryside. it s undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they ll most likely die. but road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary. a former plantation the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola, named after the african country that was home to the slaves who once worked these very fields. now, angela is the largest maximum security prison in the country, where today, i ll be housed with about 5500 men. i m heading into ground zero of mass incarceration. there s certainly a heightened awareness as i walk through here. no guards. for the next couple days, i ll be staying here, explain key issues of the pri
$6250 for each of his 28 years behind bars. from 2016 to 2020, 374 people wrongfully convicted of murder, 61% african-americans, have reunited with their families together they spent over 6000 years in prison. years. years they will never get back. that s all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. i am craig melvin and this is dateline. leading up to this assign what it was going to be like. i had so many thoughts leading to this assignment as to what it would be like. trying to imagine going down isoad, knowing it s a one- way trip. this moment where you get your last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steelman mesh. louisiana highway 66. it s beautiful countryside and undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they will most likely die. that road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary, a former plantation. the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola named
name is andrew hundley. he might look like a lawyer, but he s actually the first juvenile lifer in louisiana to be released because of montgomery s supreme court case. all right, all right. today s the day. oh, yes, sir. hundley served 19 years in prison. at age 15, hundley was out with a teenage girl when they got into an argument. he became enraged and beat her over the head with a metal rod, and then tried to get rid of her body by burning it. you committed a pretty savage crime. it was a horrible crime. an unexcusable crime. and there s nothing i can do that will be able to undo that. thankfully they were able to look and see how i had changed. so, if a parole board said that he changed after 19 years, what will it say about henry montgomery after 55 years? you re the first guy that got out and he s still here. yeah, there s a lot of guilt. i went to prison
meet, a parole board s answer could mean the difference between a second chance at life, or growing old and dying behind bars. back to lester holt with life inside. in my three days at angola, most of the men i spoke with had committed violent crimes and received long sentences. life without parole? yeah. but like every prison, there are also nonviolent offenders serving long sentences that might as well be life. john estein is one of them. i grew up in a middle class neighborhood. went to catholic schools. estein is a gulf war vet who says he was lost and broken when he came home. well, i had no direction in life. in 2000, he was found guilty of running a massive drug ring that moved kilos of cocaine between texas and louisiana. it was his second drug conviction.
ambitious in the state s history. you have actually reduced your prison population here? we have. but we are number two in the country at present. and it s a process. to see this happen in a deep red state, law and order south, is pretty stunning to a lot of folks. wouldn t you agree? it is. it s counter intuitive that you can overincarcerate and be less safe because of it. the reforms are projected to reduce department of corrections spending by more than $260 million over the next decade. some of that money will be invested into re-entry programs for those coming home. an important investment, because every week an average of 12,000 prisoners in america are released back to society. 95% of the inmates are going to get out. and when you do next to nothing to prepare them for successful re-entry, then you are creating a future that is more riddled with crime. but louisiana s reforms focus on nonviolent offenders.