States of Incarceration

Louisiana’s contribution to the States of Incarceration national public history project, co-directed by Benjamin Weber, features the multimedia work of his University of New Orleans’ students, community members, and young people. It involved a series of fifteen events including artist workshops inside the juvenile jail, an inside/out youth summit on juvenile justice, and a collaboration designed with men inside the Louisiana State Penitentiary, Angola. “Windows on Angola Prison” is featured in the national traveling exhibit and displayed below.

American Federation of Teachers Journal

Teaching Histories of Race and Incarceration in the Prison Capital of the World

I have been thinking a lot about the challenges of teaching the history of policing and prisons in New Orleans ever since the AFT asked me to write for this issue of Voices on Campus. The situation is heavy here. Louisiana has the highest incarceration rate in the world. It also has one of the worst records of racial disparity in sentencing. In fact, last year the American Civil Liberties Union found that black Louisianans were 23 times more likely than whites to get life without parole for a nonviolent offense, and currently make up 91.4 percent of those prisoners. In New Orleans, one in 14 black men is locked up. Ten years after Hurricane Katrina, the sheriff is pushing to build yet another jail with recovery money. In reflecting on the course I taught this fall, three points — about empathy, urgency and collaboration — seem especially worth sharing….