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Essay / Research Paper Abstract
A 5 page paper which examines the Louisiana Correctional system through a case study of Wilbert Rideau. Bibliography lists 5 sources.
Page Count:
5 pages (~225 words per page)
File: JR7_RArideau.rtf
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Unformatted sample text from the term paper:
person and his circumstances and his inherent changes have led many to examine the institute of corrections in Louisiana and elsewhere in the nation. He committed the crime back in
1961 and has been in prison the longest, it seems, of any man sentenced to death, or death row, in Louisiana. The following paper examines the case of Wilbert Rideau,
"a nationally admired writer, journalist, filmmaker and reformer," as it informs us about the correctional system of Louisiana, as well as the nation (NPRs Weekend Edition, 2000). Wilbert
Rideau In looking at some of the statistics we first look at the Rideau Project which compiled a study of Calcasieu murderers, Calcasieu being the judicial and court system in
that particular region in Louisiana. The Project "compiled clemencies to convicted Calcasieu murderers - and eventually to all Louisiana murderers - using records from 1889 until the present" (LaBranche, 2001).
Their study was titled "The Rideau Report" and in their statistics, some of which involve Wilbert Rideau, we see how this particular correctional system works in some ways. The report
found that Wilbert Rideau has actually been imprisoned for more years than any other sort of offender in the history of the Calcasieu Parish (LaBranche, 2001). Every time a black
man was convicted of murder he was sentenced to death if the death penalty was available at the time (LaBranche, 2001). When Wilbert Rideau was sentenced to death Louisiana had
reversed its capital punishment law and he was thus sentenced to life in prison. When the numbers of black convicts are compared with white we note a large difference:
"By contrast, the death sentencing rate for whites convicted of murdering whites was 23.3% and for blacks convicted of murdering other blacks, 10.4%" (LaBranche, 2001). In Calcasieu no single white
...