Rodeo for caged cowboys
Louisiana State Pentitentiary at Angola. You can feel his proud look from behind the mirror sunglasses. When Terry Hawkins – Department of Corrections number 101 896 – is speaking, he carries himself as a man who has seen it all and beaten them all. Like a professional rider “on the streets”, Hawkins has the sound byte answer to the question about he earned his nickname bullfighter. He tells with bravado the story of the nineteen fights he won against the bull. But Hawkins is not a professional rider. He was sentenced in 1985 to life in prison without parole for murder and sent to Angola. “On the streets”, the tall Afro-American would never have thought about challenging a bull. But at 42, he is now the star of what the prison calls “the Wildest show in the South”, because one day he got into a fight with his boss. The guy’s name was Denver Tarter. According, he did not want to let Hawkins leave earlier to attend hi daughter’s birthday. The fight got nasty. Hawkins grabbed an ax. He hit the man. And hit him again until his victim lay dead, his head almost chopped off. Every Sunday in October since 1965, Angola, one of the most notorious maximum-security penitentiaries in the United States, has been hosting a rodeo for volunteer inmate cowboys. Hawkins made a name for himself at Angola by repeatedly winning the Guts and Glory, the rodeo’s grand finale. The premise of this made-for-prison event is simple. The inmates have three minutes to try to grab a red chip worth $200 off the horns of a 2000-pound bull. Hawkins gambled his health to defy the bull. While speaking, he takes off the denture that replaced the missing front teeth he lost after brutally clashing with his nemesis in the arena. But Hawkins does not care about the pain, because his two daughters, 20 and 22 years old, will be among the 10 000 people cheering him on today. They attend every rodeo and make it a special event for a man who dreads solitude. When inmates end up at Angola, they gradually lose every contact to the outside world, even to their family members. For them, the rodeo is an occasion to be seen. In a penitentiary, where eight prisoners out of ten are serving sentences so long that they will die there, the rodeo brings a few seconds of glory and freedom. And there is the money. At Angola, the pay for inmate labor ranges from 2 to 20 cents an hour and most inmates are willing to take their chance with the bulls in the most dangerous events with the biggest prize money. Some cowboys use their winnings to try to improve their life in prison. Some spend it on legal fees to keep their hope of leaving Angola alive one day or send it to their families. Others like Donald Cook, a small, skinny, tattooed man, are giving the roaring crowd the last thing they have: their body. They are looking for the pain to carry them away from Angola. For them, the rodeo becomes a kind of purifying sacrifice. Cook, 36, seriously hurt his back two weeks ago but desperately wants to get back into the arena. In a penitentiary where 80% of the inmates are Black, Cook is one of the rare white males. He knows he will never leave Angola alive. He was sentenced to life in prison without parole plus another 125 years for 1st degree murder and armed robbery while he was on parole. The rodeo is his way to show he is not a “quitter”, even if that means getting seriously hurt. Cook is not afraid of the pain but does not want his mother to know he is still taking part in the rodeo: “Please don’t tell my mom, he says. I promised to her last year I would retire”. Angola stands out in the US prison system. In the 19th century, it was a slave plantation and is now known as the “Farm”. With its 18000 acres, it is the largest maximal security penitentiary in the United States. To deal with an aging inmate, the penitentiary opened up an hospice for its dying prisoners. In their final days, patients are provided televisions, DVD players and video games. For them, the only way out of Angola is in a casket. Those, who have lost contact to their families and have nobody to claim their body, cannot even rely on their death to carry them far away from that place. Once they pass away, they are buried at Point Lookout, a cemetery inside the prison. There are no high walls at Angola. The “Farm” surrounded by the Mississippi River and its swamps on three sides and the treacherous Tunica Hills on the fourth. St Francisville, the closest town is 25 miles away. These natural barriers seem unbeatable to the inmates and discourage them from trying to escape. Once a prisoner gets to Angola, he is first job is hard labor in the field. After many years of good behavior, inmates get a chance to become trustees, a status that gives them advantages. The trustees are allowed to take care of the cattle and move with less supervision inside the prison. They are housed in dormitories like most of the 5108 inmates. On the day of the rodeo, the trustees can interact with the crowd and sell their woodwork, leatherwork or paintings. Religion is everywhere at Angola. At the start of the rodeo, a chaplain thanks God for George Bush, for the warden Burl Cain, and for the event. Horse riders dressed as white angels make circles in the arena. “The inmates must deserve their place in paradise. They cannot recover their freedom but they have time to save their souls”, says Cathy Fontenot, the small and energetic communication director of the prison. Burl Cain, a Southern Baptist layman, often speaks about his “compassion” for the inmates. But his show has to be entertaining and inmates like Leotis Webster, number 82, are not allowed to train for the rodeo. Webster is trying to ride on a wild horse. The animal gallops right to the fence where the inmate crashes violently and falls. The loud crowd suddenly stops cheering. Webster, 52, cannot stand up. He does not even move. As he is being carried away by four Samaritans, the announcer breaks the ice with his deep southern voice. He asks the crowd to give Webster, “the nicest guy” he has met, a big round of applause. Time for the “convict poker”, one of the highlights of the Angola prison rodeo. The premise is simple: four inmates take a seat around a poker table before a bull is let into the arena. A clown stands by the “players” to draw the attention of the bull until he charges them. The last mast man sitting at the table wins the $200 pot. The bull runs around the men before he finally singles out Harry Kersey. Kersey was sent to Angola in 1996 with a life sentence for aggravated rape. Since then he has become one of the stars of the “convict poker”, an event he won on several occasions. The bull hits him hard. A couple of hours earlier, under the close supervision of the media escort of the prison, the inmate had been proud to share his stories of convict poker. He had been glad to talk about the bull, who had knocked him out in 2002 after having tossed him 15 feet in the air. With the crowd cheering him on, Kersey stands up and limps away. A few minutes later, he is back in the arena for next event. After two hours of rodeo, it is Terry Hawkins’ turn to shine. The bullfighter stands out of the rest of the pack with his bright red hat. He wants the bull to notice him and charge him. Hawkins is about to make is move, but inmate number 41 grabs the chip. He throws his arms in the air. On the road to paradise going through Angola , inmate number 41 knows he has made a small step toward redemption. Angola (Louisiana) / Jean-Cosme Delaloye “Pardon does not exist”Powell Miller, a public defender in New Orleans, thinks that the legislature of Louisiana Has given up on rehabilitating the inmates. Prison sentences in Louisiana are tough. Louisiana is one of the most punitive States in the US. Since 1972, all its life sentences have come without the possibility of parole. Louisiana has been using these natural life sentences for murder, aggravated rape, aggravated kidnapping and the so-called “third strike” for habitual offenders. Only a pardon signed by the governor, can commute the life sentence into a lengthy sentence, the only way an inmate has a chance to ever get out of Angola. But such a move is literally non-existent in Louisiana. “Pardon does not exist”, said Powell Miller in an interview in St. Francisville. “Pardon should give inmates hope but it does not change anything. Louisiana has very tough sentences compared to those in the “civilized world”. And it has gotten out of hand in the last 10 years”, Miller added. With one person out of eighty people behind bars, Louisiana has by far the highest rate of incarceration in the world. It is ten times more than countries like France or Germany Since the 70s, the inmate population in Louisiana has increased by 1000%. At the same time, the State’s education system has become one of the worst in the US. And Louisiana has one of the highest crimes rates in the US. A sentence for an armed robbery can vary between 15 and 99 years in prison. “If it is the first time a defendant is convicted, he will usually get a 15-year or 20-year sentence. But it does depend on the judge”, said Miller. Ronnie Scott, 28, was not lucky. A first time offender, he was sentenced to 60 years at Angola for an armed robbery. That is the kind of sentence that entices Powell Miller to say that Louisiana “has given up on the rehabilitation of the inmates”. The public defender thinks that such a “tough on crime” approach will eventually evolve into something “more meaningful”: “California has started to rethink its legal system”, he concluded. “Elected officials started to realize that they need to spend more money on education and on the rehabilitation of inmates if they want to fight against crime”. J-C De Angola in numbers-801. The State has 801 prisoners per 100 000 people. A French version of this article was published in October 2003 in 24heures and Tribune de Genève CommentsYou must be logged in to post a comment. |
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