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John P. Whitley (born January 1944 in Hammond, Louisiana) is a former Louisiana corrections officer who served as the warden of Louisiana State Penitentiary (or Angola Prison), the largest maximum-security in the United States, from 1990 to 1995. Time magazine credited Warden Whitley with turning around hopelessness and violence at Angola with "little more than his sense of decency and fairness." [1] [2]
John Whitley attended Southeastern Louisiana University in Hammond, Louisiana, and graduated in 1968. He enlisted in the United States Army that year, and served during the Vietnam War before his discharge in 1970. Shortly after, he began his career in corrections. [1]
Whitley started his career as a corrections officer at Angola in 1970. He rose through the ranks during the prison's most violent years, becoming Deputy Warden. [2]
He was promoted to warden of another Louisiana prison, Hunt Correctional Center, and left the state to run a private prison in Texas. In 1990 Louisiana recruited him to return to Angola to restore order. At a time of frequent stabbings, suicides and escapes, a United States Federal Judge declared a state of emergency at the prison in response to an ACLU suit against the state for the horrendous conditions.
Within two years, Whitley had stemmed the violence. He established incentives for good behavior, such as extra visits, and increased educational opportunities with literacy tutoring, and computer and paralegal courses. [1] He enabled some trustworthy and deserving inmates to travel outside the prison as part of athletic teams and inmate bands that provided entertainment for churches, nursing homes, and other charitable organizations. [3]
Whitley launched an outreach program to all criminal justice programs in the State of Louisiana. He offered to send both prison officials and inmates to college classrooms to help both students and faculty better understand the realities of prison management and prison life.
Like several Louisiana wardens before him, Whitley was committed to an open door policy with the media. He told editors of the inmate-produced newsmagazine, The Angolite, that he would continue the decades-long policy of lack of censorship. This had enabled the inmates to produce reporting on difficult issues and to win major national journalism awards for investigating problems at the prison.
He also said that he would continue to welcome outside media and cooperate with them: "We're not going to have anything to hide in Angola," he said. "And, if there's something that's wrong in the prison, I want to know about it, and my staff better correct it—because I intend to be proud of this prison and the way we operate it." [3] Under Whitley, The Angolite began to produce material for uncensored radio and television journalism. Whitley believed these efforts were related to the prison's other outreach programs designed to educate the public about prison life and issues. As he explained to National Public Radio's Fresh Air host, Terry Gross, about his philosophy that lay behind the lack of censorship: "We want … different views of prison. Some of the views, I don't like. It upsets me sometimes, but it's true. We're looking for the truth." [4]
In July 1991, inmate welders were ordered by a corrections department employee to build a "hospital examining table". They soon learned that it was a gurney to enable executions by lethal injection. This took place hours after an execution by electric chair had taken place. One of the welders had a brother who had been executed at the prison. Learning of these plans, hundreds of fellow inmates staged a work strike.
When Whitley learned what was happening, he locked up the strikers. He also brought in SWAT teams to prepare for the strike. But he also told the media that deceiving the inmate workers was wrong and the work order should never have been issued. He understood that it put the inmates in a bad position, and he was not going to subject them to building the lethal injection gurney. With that statement, he ended the strike without violence and gained the respect of both the inmate population and his security force. [5]
Even the conservative Baton Rouge Morning Advocate commended him in two editorials for admitting the prison had erred and correcting the mistake. [6] "It's refreshing to see a high-ranking government official admit mistakes and attempt to rectify them. It's a sign of integrity and responsibility." [7] Time magazine invited Whitley to New York City to share his management philosophy with its corporate officers and editors, and profiled him in a three-page feature. He is the only American prison warden to be so profiled. The Russian language magazine, Amerika , followed suit with a six-page profile of Whitley. [8] [ page needed ]
Angola first earned accreditation from the American Correctional Association during Whitley's tenure. This was a concrete measure of the success of reforms he had enacted to increase the safety under which both inmates and employees live and work on the prison farm.
Having accomplished his goal of turning Angola into the safest maximum security in America, Whitley retired as warden in 1995. In what "may have been a first in the history of U. S. prisons," [9] more than 100 inmate leaders pooled their money to throw Whitley a farewell party. It was attended by prison employees and officials, and covered by news media throughout Louisiana.
After leaving Angola, Whitley ran a private prison in Florida. He was called back to Louisiana to serve as the Court Expert for the U.S. Middle District Court of Louisiana. It continued to oversee the state's prisons compliance with a 1975 federal court order about conditions. He served in that position until 2003.
Whitley received numerous awards and honors during his tenure as Warden. Several of those were: Profile in "Time" Magazine, December 1992; Alumni of the Year" Southeastern Louisiana University 1993; Profile in "AMERICA", a Russian-Language Magazine, January 1994; Panelist, Time/Warner forum on Crime & Punishment - Feb. 1994; Profile by CBS News (Mike Wallace) - "In the Killing Fields of America" - Jan. 1995
Wilbert Rideau is an American convicted killer and former death row inmate from Lake Charles, Louisiana, who became an author and award-winning journalist while held for 44 years at Angola Prison. Rideau was convicted in 1961 of first-degree murder of Julia Ferguson in the course of a bank robbery that year, and sentenced to death. He was held in solitary confinement on death row, pending execution. After the Supreme Court of the United States ruled that states had to rework their death penalty statutes because of constitutional concerns, the Louisiana Court judicially amended his sentence in 1972 to life in prison.
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 slave plantation that occupied this territory. The plantation was named after the country of Angola from which many slaves originated before arriving in Louisiana.
John Ashley Brown Jr. was an American from New Orleans who was convicted of first-degree murder and incarcerated on death row in Louisiana State Penitentiary for 12 years. He was one of six inmates featured in the 1998 documentary entitled The Farm: Angola, USA. He was executed in 1997 for the murder of Omer Laughlin in New Orleans in 1984.
Texas State Penitentiary at Huntsville or Huntsville Unit (HV), nicknamed "Walls Unit", is a Texas state prison located in Huntsville, Texas, United States. The approximately 54.36-acre (22.00 ha) facility, near downtown Huntsville, is operated by the Correctional Institutions Division of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice. The facility, the oldest Texas state prison, opened in 1849.
The Angola Three are three African-American former prison inmates who were held for decades in solitary confinement while imprisoned at Louisiana State Penitentiary. The latter two were indicted in April 1972 for the killing of a prison corrections officer; they were convicted in January 1974. Wallace and Woodfox served more than 40 years each in solitary, the "longest period of solitary confinement in American prison history".
Nathan Burl Cain is the commissioner of the Mississippi Department of Corrections and the former warden at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish, north of Baton Rouge, Louisiana. He worked there for twenty-one years, from January 1995 until his resignation in 2016.
Moreese Bickham was an American resident of Mandeville, Louisiana who was arrested, convicted, and sentenced to death for the July 12, 1958 killing of a sheriff's deputy, reportedly a local Klan leader. In 1974, Bickham's death sentence was converted to life without parole after the U.S. Supreme Court's decision in Furman v. Georgia, which invalidated death penalty convictions in certain circumstances. In April, 1995, through a detailed legal challenge to Bickham's 1958 conviction, the Governor of Louisiana consented to commute Bickham's sentence to 75 years. Several months later, Bickham's attorney won a full release, and Bickham left Angola State Penitentiary in January, 1996, after 37 1/2 years in prison. Bickham lived the rest of his life in California, and died in hospice care in Alameda, California after a short illness, at the age of 98.
The Department of Public Safety and Corrections (DPS&C) is a state law enforcement agency responsible for the incarceration of inmates and management of facilities at state prisons within the state of Louisiana. The agency is headquartered in Baton Rouge. The agency comprises two major areas: Public Safety Services and Corrections Services. The secretary, who is appointed by the governor of Louisiana, serves as the department's chief executive officer. The Corrections Services deputy secretary, undersecretary, and assistant secretaries for the Office of Adult Services and the Office of Youth Development report directly to the secretary. Headquarters administration consists of centralized divisions that support the management and operations of the adult and juvenile institutions, adult and juvenile probation and parole district offices, and all other services provided by the department.
Jonathan David Stack is an American documentary filmmaker. He is also a co-founder of World Vasectomy Day.
The Farm: Angola, USA is a 1998 award-winning documentary set in the notorious and largest American maximum-security prison, Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola. Loosely based on articles published in Life Sentences, drawn from the prison magazine, The Angolite, the film was directed and produced by Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus. Wilbert Rideau, a life prisoner who had been editor of the magazine since 1975, also participated in direction and was credited on the film.
The Missouri State Penitentiary was a prison in Jefferson City, Missouri, that operated from 1836 to 2004. Part of the Missouri Department of Corrections, it served as the state of Missouri's primary maximum security institution. Before it closed, it was the oldest operating penal facility west of the Mississippi River. It was replaced by the Jefferson City Correctional Center, which opened on September 15, 2004.
Elayn Hunt Correctional Center (EHCC) located in St. Gabriel, Louisiana, is a multi-security- level Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections institution for adult men. It is the second-largest prison in Louisiana and is located about 70 miles northwest of New Orleans. Elayn Hunt has about half the number of prisoners held at the larger Louisiana State Penitentiary, known as Angola.
Louisiana Correctional Institute for Women (LCIW) is a prison for women with its permanent pre-2016 facility located in St. Gabriel, Louisiana. It is the only female correctional facility of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections. Elayn Hunt Correctional Center is immediately west of LCIW. LCIW includes the state's female death row. As of 2017 the prison has temporarily moved due to flooding that occurred in August 2016, and its prisoners are housed in other prisons. The administration is temporarily located in the former Jetson Youth Center near Baker. By 2021 the Baker area address was given for the prison on the LCIW website.
Dixon Correctional Institute (DCI) is a prison facility in Jackson, Louisiana. DCI, a facility of the Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections, is approximately 30 miles (48 km) from Baton Rouge. Dixon is located about 34 miles (55 km) from the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola).
The Angola Prison Rodeo, staged at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, is the longest running prison rodeo in the United States.
David Wade Correctional Center (DWCC) is a Louisiana Department of Public Safety and Corrections prison located in an unincorporated area of Claiborne Parish, between Homer and Haynesville, Louisiana. The prison is located near the Louisiana-Arkansas border.
The Angolite is the inmate-edited and published magazine of the Louisiana State Penitentiary (Angola) in West Feliciana Parish, Louisiana.
Billy Wayne Sinclair is a former prisoner at the Louisiana State Penitentiary, convicted of first-degree murder and originally sentenced to death. His sentence was commuted to life in 1972. He became a notable journalist, known from 1978 for co-editing The Angolite with Wilbert Rideau; together they won some national journalism awards at the magazine, and were nominated for others. It published articles written by inmates at the prison.
C. Paul Phelps Correctional Center (PCC) was a Louisiana Department of Public Safety & Corrections prison for men, located in unincorporated Beauregard Parish, Louisiana, about 3 miles (4.8 km) north of DeQuincy and 30 miles (48 km) northwest of Lake Charles. The center was located on Louisiana Highway 27. It had a capacity of 942 prisoners and was a medium security facility.
A prison cemetery is a graveyard reserved for the dead bodies of prisoners. Generally, the remains of inmates who are not claimed by family or friends are interred in prison cemeteries and include convicts executed for capital crimes.
