• By SARAH CHACKO
• Advocate Capitol News Bureau
• Published: Nov 21, 2009 - Page: 1A

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Angola’s warden Burl Cain told a group of legislators Friday that there are about 200 prisoners he would send home if he could.

At an average cost of $54.50 a day to house a state prisoner, those 200 are costing the state about $4 million a year.

Instead, Cain said, he has cut $12 million from his budget by double-bunking inmates, replacing some guards with cameras, and cutting overtime for the 24-7 operation of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola.

“Some of these things we can’t keep doing,” Cain said.

Members of the House criminal justice committee toured Angola on Friday. Committee chairman Ernest Wooton, a former sheriff, said he wanted his colleagues to have an understanding of the prison and its programs before considering more budget cuts next year.

“We make a lot of laws that result with people ending up here,” said Wooton, R-Belle Chasse.

More than half of the 5,000 or so inmates at Angola are there for life. The average sentence is 93 years.

Using bunk beds, called double-bunking, can double the inmate population in a dorm, he said. It’s a practice Cain said he hopes will go away soon.

“This is not the way to live for the rest of your life,” he said.

Cain said there are many inmates at Angola who are rehabilitated, who have become ministers or have learned trades, and can make it on their own in the free world.

Inmate Sidney Deloch, of Plaquemine agrees.

Thirty years into his life sentence for rape, Deloch said he is now a minister at Angola.

He said he sees young men waste their lives there.

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