Angola Prison Rodeo – Guts and Glory

By: NOLA Celeste
Fair Disclosure – I have met a few of Kristin's readers who remember my guest post about cockfighting in Louisiana. If that post ruffled your feathers, this one definitely will, as it involves humans.

On Sunday, my husband and I ventured about 2.5 hours north of New Orleans to the Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, Louisiana. Angola Prison, known as "The Farm," houses 5,000 of the state's most notorious criminals – murders, rapists and child molesters – in a maximum security setting situated on 18,000 acres of farmland bounded on three sides by the Mississippi River. Besides being a working farm, it is also home to Louisiana's electric chair (last used in 1991). Nearly all of its prisoners will die behind its gates, as the average sentence is 50-88 years.

It is also home to the Angola Prison Rodeo, which just like any rodeo (I guess) features barrel racing, rodeo clowns and various other forms of equine and bovine entertainment. Unlike most other rodeos, however, at the Angola Prison Rodeo, the best-behaved prisoners – the best-behaved murders, rapists and child molesters – have the opportunity to volunteer to be gored by bulls for cash prizes.

The grounds are surprisingly beautiful. As you drive up to the flower-bed surrounded front gates, passing the Angola Prison Museum (which now houses Louisiana's electric chair, after it was abandoned for lethal injections), a uniformed corrections officer hands you a photocopied set of instructions (no cell phones, ice chests or pocket knives allowed inside) and directs you down an oak-tree lined road to the parking area. After passing several acres of soybean and cotton fields, you park your car and walk up to the rodeo grounds.

The 7,500-seat arena (built by prison labor, apparently) is impressive. Surrounding the arena is a small concrete hut city where various prisoner clubs sell snacks – the "Students of Islam Funnel Cakes Stand," the "Lifer's Club Hot Dog Stand," the "AAA (Angola Alcoholics Anonymous) Lemonade Stand," and the "Incarcerated Veterans Milkshake Stand," are just a few examples.

Wow. The last one is sad.

To the right of the arena is a covered market where prisoners sell handicrafts. The goods are on numbered tables, and the prisoner craftsmen sit behind fenced-in "hallways" surrounding the market on three sides. Apparently the long arms of the United States Copyright and Trademark Laws do not reach Angola, Louisiana. Every type of handicraft possible (wooden boxes, benches, wall clocks, rocking chairs, leather belts, purses, pouches, etc.) pays homage to such well-known brands as Baby Phat and FUBU. There is no shortage of wolf art and 2Pac Shakur paintings. It is easy to forget that the grey-bearded fellow in white coveralls shellacking a picture of Dora the Explorer on a wooden wall clock is a murder, rapist or child molester.

After exploring the handicrafts market, we took our seats inside the arena to enjoy the show. The rodeo itself was comprised of alternating inmate events and professional rodeo events (including a monkey dressed in cowboy chaps and a hat riding a sheep dog). A few of the inmate events are highlighted below:

Inmate Poker – Four inmates sit at a poker table pretending to hold playing cards. A horned bull is released into the arena and is directed by the rodeo clowns to charge the table. The last inmate sitting wins.

Inmate Pinball – About ten inmates are directed to stand in hula-hoops arranged in a pattern near the bull pen. A horned bull is released into the arena and is directed by the rodeo clowns to charge the inmates. The last inmate to remain inside his hula-hoop wins.

Guts and Glory – All of the participating inmates enter the arena. A horned bull with a poker chip tied to his head (in between his horns) is released into the arena. The first inmate who can leap onto the bull and grab the poker chip wins $600.

Did I mention that the inmates are wearing striped prison uniforms and, in many cases, sneakers?

"Guts and Glory" was the last event of the day and was punctuated by a mass-exodus from the arena. As we exited the gates of Angola and rode off into the sunset down the 20-mile long winding road to the main highway, I laughed to myself as I wrote this post in my head.

Is the rodeo innocent entertainment? Prisoner exploitation? A form of inmate mind control? One commentator has argued that the rodeo "capitalizes on the public's fascination with criminality through the spectacle of animalistic inmate others subdued by a progressive penal system."

Maybe my problem is that I am trapped in a barrel, about to be hit on one side by the bull of people who, without guilt, find the rodeo to be great family fun and on the other side by the bull of social commentators who refuse to find humor in any situation involving an imbalance of power.

At least neither bull expects me to grab poker chips off of its head.



Tag: New Orleans