Life Sentences: Rage and Survival Behind Bars

Drawing on their award-winning reporting for the Louisiana State Penitentiary's uncensored newsmagazine, The Angolite, Wilbert Rideau and Ron Wikberg present the stark reality of life behind bars and the human, political, and fiscal costs of our long-running war on crime.

Ron Wikberg, associate editor of The Angolite, was convicted of murder in 1969. He began writing for the magazine in 1971 and joined the staff in 1987. He was paroled in 1992. Wilbert Rideau has been the editor-in-chief of The Angolite since 1975. An eighth-grade dropout, he was convicted of murder in 1961 and spent eleven years on death row at Angola, where he taught himself to write. He has been the subject of segments on 20/20, Nightline, and National Public Radio.