In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance Buy Now

I have lived in Louisiana since 1980 and have followed Wilbert Rideau's story the entire time. I always believed that he should be eligible for parole at some point when fair-minded people in charge of the system believed it was time. I also saw that fair-minded people were not in charge of the system. He was too famous,too outspoken, and a black murder in a racist state with corrupt whites and blacks in power. I was glad in 2005 when he finally got out. It always seemed to me that he had changed and had proven he had rehabilitated himself with some help from the prison system amid a hellish environment. I don't think prisoners should be in a spa-like setting, but they surely should be in a humane environment and should at least have safe conditions with fair options to be rehabilitated and then freed to go into society and have a second chance. Otherwise we just reinforce the violence and anti-social actions that led them to crime in the first place. I think we should set an example of how civilized humans act. Otherwise we are no better than the criminals.

Thus, it was with great delight that I saw this autobiography was for sale. Ii went to a book signing and purchased it and had it signed by the author and spoke with him slightly. He seemed a decent,intelligent, quiet-spoken older man.

Now to the book itself. It is a page turner. At each sitting to read it, I have read at least 100 pages at a time. He is a very good writer and re-creates the world of the Parish jails and of Angola quite vividly. It is all so awful with immense unfairness and in truth evil that it is hard to believe it is not fiction. But it is a true. The parts that describe large and small acts of kindness and fairness from fellow prisoners and prison employees and others are very moving.I really highly recommend this book if you like true stories or any stories. It is basically a saga of determination,transformation, personal integrity, and redemption. It tells of brutal events and of tenacity and of a persons's struggle to develop his own humanity and to keep hope in the face of harsh and quite often unfair circumstances.It is also about coming to terms with having murdered a fellow human being.

The man killed a person in cold blood and wounded two others. That was in 1961. He served 44 years in prison. He changed. He admits the murder was awful and wrong and really hurt others and that he feels great pain about having done it. He has become a good human being. He is a great and talented writer and reporter. Again I will say I am glad he got out and I love his book. Everyone is entitled to feel about him as they do. I am glad i gave his book a chance and read it. Taken on it's own merits, this book measures up as enthralling,real drama. It is a great read.Get more detail about In the Place of Justice: A Story of Punishment and Deliverance.