page_title: Louisiana State Penitentiary
section_title: Composition
hierarchical_section_title: Louisiana State Penitentiary / Composition
caption_attribution_description: English: USGS orthophoto of Louisiana State Penitentiary in Louisiana, United States Español: Fotografía aérea de la Louisiana State Penitentiary Français&#160;: Photographie aérienne du Louisiana State Penitentiary
context_page_description: The Louisiana State Penitentiary is a maximum-security prison farm in Louisiana operated by the Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections. It is named "Angola" after the former plantation that occupied this territory. The plantation was named for the African country that was the origin of many slaves brought to Louisiana.
  Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States with 6,300 prisoners and 1,800 staff, including corrections officers, janitors, maintenance, and wardens. Due to these large numbers, it has been given the nickname "a gated community." Located in West Feliciana Parish, the prison is set between oxbow lakes on the east side of a bend of the Mississippi River, so it is surrounded on three sides by water. It lies less than two miles south of Louisiana's straight east-west border with Mississippi. The 18,000 acres of land the prison sits on was known before the American Civil War as the Angola Plantations and was owned by Isaac Franklin. The prison is located at the end of Louisiana Highway 66, around 22 miles northwest of St. Francisville.
  Burl Cain served as the warden from 1995 to March 7, 2016.
context_section_description: The 18,000-acre (7,300 ha) prison property occupies a 28-square-mile (73 km²) area. The size of the prison property is larger than the size of Manhattan. Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, authors of The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, said that Angola of the 1990s looks "more like a large working plantation than one of the most notorious prisons in the United States." Officers patrol the complex on horseback, as many of the prison acres are devoted to cultivation of crops. By 1999 the prison's primary roads had been paved.
  The prison property is surrounded by the Tunica Hills and by the Mississippi River. The perimeter of the property is not fenced, while the individual prisoner dormitory and recreational camps are fenced. Most of the prison buildings are yellow with a red trim.
caption: An aerial view of Louisiana State Penitentiary, January 10, 1998, U.S. Geological Survey
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