In this volume, Foster, Rideau, and Dennis have collected thirty-three scholarly and personal essays examining various historical and contemporary facets of the Louisiana State penal system. Specific subjects covered include the lives of female prisoners in the Baton Rouge Penitentiary, the Red Hat prison, Angola prison in the nineteen-seventies, Louisiana as the world's prison capital, county sheriffs running prisons, and a great many more. Burk Foster is a retired criminal justice professor. Wilbert Rideau was a long-time inmate of Angola prison in Louisiana, released in 2005. Douglas Dennis died in Angola prison in 2009. Annotation ©2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)