Composition
The 18,000-acre (7,300 ha) prison property occupies a 28-square-mile (73 km2) area. The size of the prison property is larger than the size of Manhattan. Charles Wolfe and Kip Lornell, authors of The Life and Legend of Leadbelly, said that LSP of the 1990s looks "more like a large working plantation than one of the most notorious prisons in the United States." Guards patrol the complex on horseback, as many of the prison acres are devoted to cultivation of crops. By 1999 the prison's primary roads had been paved. The prison property is hemmed in by the Tunica Hills and by the Mississippi River. The perimeter of the property is not fenced, while the individual prisoner dormitory and recreational camps are fenced. Most of the prison buildings are yellow with a red trim.
Read more about this topic: Louisiana State Penitentiary
Famous quotes containing the word composition:
“At painful times, when composition is impossible and reading is not enough, grammars and dictionaries are excellent for distraction.”
—Elizabeth Barrett Browning (1806–1861)
“Give a scientist a problem and he will probably provide a solution; historians and sociologists, by contrast, can offer only opinions. Ask a dozen chemists the composition of an organic compound such as methane, and within a short time all twelve will have come up with the same solution of CH4. Ask, however, a dozen economists or sociologists to provide policies to reduce unemployment or the level of crime and twelve widely differing opinions are likely to be offered.”
—Derek Gjertsen, British scientist, author. Science and Philosophy: Past and Present, ch. 3, Penguin (1989)
“I live in the angle of a leaden wall, into whose composition was poured a little alloy of bell-metal. Often, in the repose of my mid-day, there reaches my ears a confused tintinnabulum from without. It is the noise of my contemporaries.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)