NEW ORLEANS (WGNO) — A newly revealed ebook by The Historic New Orleans Assortment particulars the traits, historical past and present realities of mass incarceration in Louisiana.

“Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration” was first an exhibition, however the exhibition was so fashionable, and the information so extensively researched, that it was later determined, lengthy after the exhibition was gone, that the information would stay on in a ebook to encourage change and future analysis.

Eric Seiferth is a curator and historian at HNOC. He’s additionally one of many authors of the ebook and says, “The establishments of slavery and mass incarceration are traditionally linked. They actually grew in live performance and strengthened one another. New Orleans was the middle of the Home slave commerce within the 1820s, ’30s and ’40s. We all know now that it is among the most incarcerated locations on the planet. One of many tales we characteristic is an enslaved lady who’s required to put on a 12 to 13-pound lead ball round her ankle for 3 and a half years.”

Nick Weldon, a senior editor at HNOC, can be one of many ebook’s authors, and says, “we actually wished to inform the story of how Louisiana got here to be. On this ebook, you go from the Code Noir, the Spanish period, all the best way to convict leasing in the course of the 1800s, the Jim Crow structure of 1898 and the robust on crime legal guidelines that began being handed by the state legislature within the Seventies and Nineteen Eighties.  We spotlight folks from all 300 years of Louisiana’s historical past. Louisiana now spends nearly a billion {dollars} on its incarceration system. Three out of 4 individuals who go into this method now, are being charged with nonviolent offenses.”

To be taught extra in regards to the “Captive State” ebook, go to The Historic New Orleans Assortment web site.

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