The Visiting Room Documents the Stories of People Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
Equal Justice Initiative, August 7, 2023: The Visiting Room Documents the Stories of People Sentenced to Life in Prison Without Parole
“Over 55,000 people in the U.S. are currently sentenced to life imprisonment without the possibility of parole. Thousands of those people are incarcerated at Angola Prison in Louisiana, which sentences more people to life in prison than any other state in the country.
“A documentary project called The Visiting Room has interviewed over 100 people who have been sentenced to die in prison at Angola with the hope of giving broad audiences a view into the lives of people serving lengthy sentences, as well as their transformations.
“‘Most people only hear about us when our crime happens, but we have changed and we invite you to sit down with us now decades later to meet the people we have become,’ Terry Pierce, who is incarcerated at Angola, shares in an introductory video for the project.
“The dozens of interviews published in The Visiting Room’s archive reflect the reality of life at Angola; the people interviewed are disproportionately Black, and most have been convicted of crimes that occurred when they were young adults.”
Additional reading:
The New York Times, August 1, 2023: They Know What They Did. They’d Like You to Know Who They’ve Become.
NPR, October 1, 2022: What it's like serving a life sentence in prison with no chance of release
Forbes, August 8, 2023: Like A Butterfly: The Artistry Of Gary Tyler
