Captive State. This item is unavailable.Captive State

For decades, Louisiana has had the highest incarceration rate in the United States. If it were a country, it would have the second-highest incarceration rate in the world. Far from a modern phenomenon, this distinction is rooted in more than three centuries of history—roots that extend out from the principal city of New Orleans, once the epicentre of the American slave trade. Adapted from the groundbreaking exhibition of the same name, Captive State: Louisiana and the Making of Mass Incarceration traces the evolution of laws and customs thatcreated this carceral system and that, by design, have disproportionately harmed Black Louisianians. As the human and financial costs continue to mount, Captive State details the choices that led us here–and asks whether Louisiana is fated to remain captive to its history.

Eric Seiferth is a curator/historian at the Historic New Orleans Collection (HNOC). Kevin T. Harrell, PhD, is a collections cataloger at HNOC. Katherine Jolliff Dunn is a curatorial cataloger at HNOC. Nick Weldon is an editor at HNOC, and is coauthor of Monumental: Oscar Dunn and His Radical Fight in Reconstruction Louisiana.