I had so many thoughts leading up to this assignment as to what it was going to be like.

I tried to imagine going down this road, knowing it's one way trip.

This moment where you get your last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is

still mesh.

Louisiana's Highway 66, its beautiful countryside, is undoubtedly not lost on the countless

men driven to the place where they'll most likely die.

That road ends here.

The Louisiana State Penitentiary, a former plantation, the size of Manhattan, 28 square

miles.

Most people call it Angola, named after the African country that was home to the slaves

once worked these very fields.

Now Angola is the largest maximum security prison in the country, confining about 5,500

men.

Today, I'm heading into Ground Zero of Mass Incarceration.

There's certainly a heightened awareness as I walk through here with no guards.

For the next couple of days, I'll be staying here, exploring key issues of the prison reform

debate, juvenile settings to life without parole.

We were children we got incarcerated.

The elastic effects of the war on drugs, my sense it was 150 years, the power of rehabilitation.

You know that you've done something your life has worked well.

And the demand, by many, for punishment.

Personally, I think he's where he needs to be.

...