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NEW YORK (AP) – Lester Holt laughed when his colleagues offered to spend two nights in the Louisiana State Penitentiary for a NBC News report on criminal justice reform.
"At first, I thought to myself" it's dangerous, "said Holt," It's one of the most notorious prisons in the world, and you want to keep me locked up? " of security?
There was also the smell of a waterfall that could obscure serious intentions. Instead, the sobering trip frames Friday's "Dateline NBC" report on the "harsh crime" legislation of the 1990s and what it meant for society. d & # 39; aujourd & # 39; hui. The show is repeated Sunday night on MSNBC, with a public meeting moderated by Holt from inside another well-known prison, Sing Sing, in New York.
Holt had access to the vast Louisiana jail, known as "Angola", because the desire to tackle these problems coincided with the attempts of Governor John Bel Edwards of the United States. lower the population inside the premises of his state. While Holt was getting on a prison bus to the old 28-square-kilometer plantation (about 72 km 2) that was home to about 5,500 inmates, he thought about the number of people who took the same route knowing that they could never come back.
For two nights, he slept in a death row cell in Angola, alongside prisoners who were locked inside, with the exception of one hour per day of recreation in the city. prison yard. The man in the cell next to him had not been out for four years.
"The only time I felt perfectly safe, it's in my cell with the door locked," Holt said.
He felt much less secure in an open-air vehicle, next to people convicted of murder, on a carrot-picking mission. For a black journalist, it was difficult to escape the symbolism of working in a field with a majority of black inmates under the watchful eye of white correctional officers.
The number of elderly people he saw in prison was particularly striking for Holt. The show follows two long-time detainees who find out whether they will be released on parole or not. He also spoke to a terminally ill prisoner who died before the NBC special broadcast could be broadcast.
"Intellectually, I understood that there would be guys who would be old," he said. "But when you see 70- and 80-year-olds, it gives them a sense of why they're still here, and they've obviously committed a horrible crime when they were younger. Rehabilitation "We make it safer" In Louisiana, they decided that it did not make them safer.
He spoke to a young prisoner, about 21 years old, who spent the rest of his life in prison.
"This has taught me a lot about our coping abilities as human beings," said Holt, "because you look at it and think that I could not do it without going crazy. But people find out, prison is its own society and people determine their own role. "
Holt said he was particularly interested in criminal justice issues since he had attended a performance in Illinois in 1995. He teamed up with veteran producer Dan Slepian , specialist in the investigation of persons presumed guilty of a crime. At Sunday City Hall in Ossining, NY, legendary singer John Legend and former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch. A recently released man from Sing Sing went to City Hall to talk to current inmates about life outside.
"I hope people will take the time to watch and learn about it," Slepian said. "Before people are so quick to say," Lock them and throw away the key, "find out about the effect it has on you and not on them."
It was important to look at the issue from different angles and to offer perspectives that viewers might not have considered, said Rashida Jones, senior vice president of special programming at NBC News.
Holt said that he did not intend to push a certain point of view.
"All we defend is the truth," he said. "When you tell these stories, it's not necessarily with the intention of getting someone out of jail, you're there to provoke conversations and reflections, to allow people to see the stories. things such as they are and make decisions from there. "
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