Louisiana State Penitentiary

Louisiana State Penitentiary
Unincorporated community
The entrance to the Louisiana State Penitentiary has a guard house that controls entry into the compound—the sign says "Louisiana State Penitentiary" and "Burl Cain, Warden"
Nickname(s):  "Angola", "Alcatraz of the South", and "The Farm"
Louisiana State Penitentiary Location in Louisiana Show map of Louisiana Louisiana State Penitentiary Louisiana State Penitentiary (the United States) Show map of the United States
Coordinates: 30°57′22″N 91°35′41″W / 30.95611°N 91.59472°W / 30.95611; -91.59472
Country	United States
State	Louisiana
Parish	West Feliciana
Elevation Angola Landing is 43 ft	49 ft (15 m)
Time zone	UTC-6 (Central (CST))
• Summer (DST)	UTC-5 (CDT)
ZIP codes	70712
Area code	225
GNIS feature ID	553304[1] Angola Landing: 542930[2]
Website	doc.louisiana.gov/location/louisiana-state-penitentiary
The above GNIS IDs are related to the "populated places". The GNIS ID for the Louisiana State Penitentiary "locale" is 536752,[3] the GNIS ID for the museum is 2603238,[4] the GNIS ID for the fire department building is 2673017,[5] and the GNIS ID for the adult school facility is 2434828.[6] The GNIS for the previous Louisiana State Penitenitary building in Baton Rouge is 552789.[7]

The Louisiana State Penitentiary (known as Angola, and nicknamed the "Alcatraz of the South", "The Angola Plantation" and "The Farm"^[8]) 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 enslaved people originated before arriving in Louisiana.^[9]

Angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the United States,^[10] with 6,300 prisoners and 1,800 staff, including corrections officers, janitors, maintenance workers, and wardens. Located in West Feliciana Parish, the prison is set between oxbow lakes on the east side of a bend of the Mississippi River and thus flanked on three sides by water. It lies less than two miles (three kilometers) south of Louisiana's straight east-west border with Mississippi.

The 28 square miles (73 square kilometers) of land the prison sits on was known before the American Civil War as the Angola Plantations, a slave plantation owned by slave trader Isaac Franklin. The prison is located at the end of Louisiana Highway 66, around 22 miles (35 km) northwest of St. Francisville. Death row for men and the state execution chamber for women and men are located at the Angola facility.