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
defines mass incarceration, it s louisiana. known for decades as the prison capital of the world. in 2019, the state s governor john bell edwards says that tough on crime approach hasn t been working. let s talk about mass incarceration. i suppose there was a time that that was a good thing, we re locking up all the bad guys. i don t know if it was ever a good thing, but we know now because of our experience that it was counterproductive. we had the highest incarceration rate in the nation for the last couple of decades but our crime rate wasn t any better for it. the recidivism rate wasn t any better. most importantly we weren t safer. it was costing $700 million a year, just that louisiana. that s third only to education and health care. we couldn t afford it. in 2017, edwards, a democrat in the deep south, signed bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation, the most
bad guys. i don t know if it was ever a good thing, but we know now because of our experience that it was counterproductive. we had the highest incarceration nation for the last couple of decades but our crime rate wasn t any better for it. the recidivism rate wasn t any better. most importantly we weren t safer. it was costing $700 million a year, just that louisiana. that s third only to education and health care. we couldn t afford it. in 2017, edwards, a democrat in the deep south, signed bipartisan criminal justice reform legislation, the most 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.