Louisiana has, for most of the last several decades, incarcerated more of its people per capita than any other state, and more than most countries in the world. As of 2025, roughly 29,000 people are in the custody of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. The state has a long and documented history of using incarceration as a tool of racial and economic control, a history that runs directly through Angola, the Louisiana State Penitentiary, an 18,000-acre prison farm in West Feliciana Parish that sits on the land of a former slave plantation named after the African country that supplied most of the plantation's enslaved people.
Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States. More than 65 percent of the men there are serving life sentences and are expected to die on the grounds. Prisoners work farm lines in Louisiana's brutal summer heat for wages of four to twenty cents an hour. A federal judge in 2024 began requiring changes to those farm line conditions after a lawsuit argued they constituted cruel and unusual punishment.
I went into the federal system, not the Louisiana DOC. I went in when my kids were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20. What I know from 66 months is that the relationship between a parent and a child during a sentence is always the question. In Louisiana, that question is sometimes complicated by a specific and devastating answer: for the majority of men at Angola, the sentence is life without parole, and the child asking when their parent is coming home may be living inside a truth no one has yet told them directly.
This article is for every incarcerated parent in Louisiana, including those whose sentences end at a date, and including those whose sentences do not.
The plantation that became a prison
It is not possible to write about Louisiana's incarceration system without writing about the history it sits inside. Angola was a plantation. The name comes from Africa. After the Civil War and the abolition of slavery, Louisiana entered the convict lease system, in which the state leased mostly Black prisoners to private landowners to work under conditions identical to slavery. Angola was purchased by the state in 1901 and has operated as a prison farm since then, worked by prisoners under the same conditions on the same land.
The history is not background. It is the operating reality. The children of men at Angola are the children of men working a plantation with armed guards. That is what it is, and speaking plainly about it does not make anything worse. It makes it possible to be honest.
What an incarcerated parent at Angola can still do, from inside that history and on that land, is the same thing every incarcerated parent can do: be present with the children who are waiting. The history does not eliminate the obligation. It makes it more urgent.
The parish jail system
Louisiana's incarceration structure includes something unusual in this series. The state contracts with local parish sheriff's offices to house a significant portion of the DOC-sentenced population in parish jails rather than state prisons. At any given time, roughly half of the state prison population is housed in local jails run by the 64 parishes. This means that a family in New Orleans whose loved one is held in Orleans Parish Prison or in the parish jail in Jefferson Parish may actually have a shorter drive than a family whose loved one is held at one of the state facilities.
The tradeoff is that parish jail conditions and programming vary enormously. State prisons, for all their problems, have more consistent programming, educational opportunities, and visitation infrastructure. Parish jails may offer fewer of those resources.
The first thing any family in Louisiana needs to do is locate where exactly their loved one is being held. The DPS&C website at doc.la.gov has an inmate locator. Knowing whether the person is in a state facility or a parish jail changes everything about how communication and visitation work.
The life sentence and what it means for children
Most of the men at Angola are not coming home. That is a fact of Louisiana's legal structure, of the mandatory sentences for violent crimes, of a legal history that made it easier to convict and harder to release. For the children of those men, the question of when their parent is coming home has a particular weight.
I am not going to tell a child that everything will be fine when it will not. What I can say is that a parent serving a life sentence is still a parent, and the relationship that parent builds with their children from inside Angola or any other Louisiana facility is still worth building. The child who grows up knowing their parent sees them, knows them, tracks their life, and loves them is building something real, even if the parent never comes home. That is not a consolation prize. It is the relationship.
The parent at Angola who calls on a consistent schedule, who asks real questions about the child's actual life, who writes letters addressed to the specific child about the specific things happening in that child's world, is parenting from inside a life sentence. That parenting matters. The child will carry it.
The decision both parents make in Louisiana
My wife never said a word against me to our six children during 66 months. She had every reason. She had six kids in a situation I had created. She chose to let them love me without penalty. What I have with my adult children now is the direct result of that choice.
The parent inside a Louisiana facility carries the same obligation from the inside. The Securus phone call, the JPay message, the letter, are all the contact the child gets. The phone list allows up to 20 approved numbers; use them thoughtfully. Calls are collect and limited to 15 minutes each; treat those minutes as what they are. Ask what happened at school. Remember what the child said last time. Ask about it this time by name. Show the child that you are paying attention from wherever you are.
The outside parent in Louisiana carries the obligation in the other direction. In a state with this much incarceration, where the experience of having a parent or relative inside is so common that it touches almost every community, there are neighbors and cousins and teachers who have been through the same thing. The community context can be supportive or it can compound the harm. What the outside parent controls is what they say at home, in front of the children, about the incarcerated parent. My wife never said anything against me. That is why I have what I have now.
What the ages mean in Louisiana
My children were 9, 11, 12, 15, 18, and 20 when I went in.
The 9-year-old in Louisiana whose parent is at Angola or at Elayn Hunt or in a parish jail needs to hear what every 9-year-old with an incarcerated parent needs to hear: this is not your fault. You did not do anything wrong. I love you. Children under 10 build private, silent explanations for a parent's absence. The explanation they most often reach is that they caused it. In Louisiana, where incarceration touches so many families, a child may feel that having an incarcerated parent is a fact about their life but still carry a private belief that they specifically caused it to happen to them. Say it directly. Say it every time. This is not about you.
The 11 and 12-year-old in Louisiana is navigating middle school in a state where poverty, racial inequality, and educational inequity are layered on top of the incarceration reality. That child is building their identity inside circumstances that are genuinely hard. The incarcerated parent who calls on a consistent schedule and asks specific questions about the child's actual life, who tracks the middle schooler's specific circumstances across the calls and the messages, is doing parenting that matters even across the 18,000 acres of Angola or through the phone line of a parish jail.
The 15-year-old in Louisiana may have a particular kind of clarity about what incarceration means and costs, especially if they have grown up in a community where it is common. That clarity does not make them less in need of genuine connection with the incarcerated parent. It may make them more demanding of authenticity. A parent who calls to check a box will not keep a Louisiana teenager. A parent who calls to listen, who can be honest about what happened without turning every call into a defense of themselves, will.
The 18 and 20-year-old is making a decision about what to carry forward. For children of parents at Angola serving life, that decision is being made with full knowledge that the relationship will always be across a fence or through a phone. Show up as someone worth maintaining that relationship with.
How communication works in Louisiana
Phone calls throughout Louisiana DPS&C facilities go through Securus Technologies. Call 1-800-844-6591 or visit securustech.net to set up a prepaid account. Calls are collect and limited to 15 minutes each. Inmates may maintain up to 20 approved telephone numbers on their list, updated quarterly. Calls are placed from 7:00 AM to 9:00 PM (hours may vary by facility). FCC rate caps effective April 6, 2026, limit calls to $0.11 per minute at prisons and large jails plus a facility fee.
Electronic messaging and money deposits are handled through JPay. Funds can be sent by mail, online, by phone, via kiosks at facilities, or through MoneyGram locations.
For in-person visitation, each inmate may have up to 10 approved visitors plus one religious adviser. Each approved visitor may visit twice per month. During a visit, up to 5 visitors at one time are permitted, including children. Small children may sit on the lap of the visitor or the offender. Contact visits allow a brief hug and kiss at the start and end of the visit; during the visit, holding hands is permitted. Visitation is a privilege and may be restricted or suspended. No visitation is allowed during intake status; if intake exceeds 30 days, a special visit with immediate family may be requested.
Angola visiting hours are weekends, 8:00 AM to 3:00 PM. Angola address: 17544 Tunica Trace, Angola, LA 70712.
For families whose loved ones are in parish jails, contact the specific parish sheriff's office for visitation and communication rules, which vary by parish.
DPS&C headquarters: (225) 342-9711. Website: doc.la.gov. Inmate locator: doc.la.gov.
Federal inmates in Louisiana fall under BOP jurisdiction. BOP communication uses TRULINCS for email via CORRLINKS and TRUFONE for phone. FCC rate caps apply; First Step Act programming offers 300 free minutes per month.
Where this leaves you
Louisiana's incarceration system carries more history per acre than almost any other system in this series. Angola sits on the land of a slave plantation and still operates as a farm. The state has the highest incarceration rate in the country by most measures. More than half of the men at its most famous prison are serving life sentences.
None of that history eliminates the question of what an incarcerated parent does with the contact they have. Fifteen minutes on a Securus call from Angola, used to ask a real question and listen to the real answer, is fifteen minutes of parenting that the child will carry. A JPay message to the 9-year-old in New Orleans that says this is not your fault, I love you, I am still your parent, is doing something that the history of the place cannot undo.
The outside parent who keeps the door open, who speaks carefully about the incarcerated parent in front of children who are listening to every word, is doing the same. Both parents making those choices is what gives the children the best version of what is available. That is what this is for. Make the choice.