The game is called Convict Poker and it's no joke. Inmates at the Angola Prison in Louisiana look forward to the prison rodeo every year.
Four inmates sit at a card table. Then a bull picks each inmate off, and the last man standing is the winner. It sounds pretty intense, and even dangerous, but at Angola Prison, like prison father-daughter dances, it's seen as downright therapeutic.
"We want to have this show and no one get hurt, no one be injured, it's about a good time. It's not about some sinister, brutal thing that happened," says warden Burl Cain. None of the inmates are required to do it but they all want to participate in the rodeo.
Over 80% of Angola's inmates will never be free again; many will die and be buried there. The rodeo is some brief relief from prison life. "It takes you away from being incarcerated while being incarcerated," says one inmate.
"I've got to try and change this dude because corrections means corrected deviant behavior. I am charged with correcting him," says Burl. "That's my job, it's not lock and feed and torture and torment."
The rodeo gives the inmates purpose, and it's not just Convict Poker. Inmates can be cowboys, sell arts and crafts, and learn the good ole meaning of hard work.
See this amazing prison rodeo in the video below, and please SHARE if you think Burl might be a little unorthodox but effective!
