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GRACE BEFORE DYING

A life sentence in Louisiana means life. More than 90% of the 5,300 inmates imprisoned at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola will die behind bars.

Until the hospice program was created in 1998, prisoners died mostly alone in the prison hospital. But the nationally recognized program, run by one staff nurse and a team of inmate volunteers, has changed that. Now a terminally ill inmate is transferred to the hospice ward. Here, inmate volunteers work closely with hospital and security staff to care for the patient. The volunteers, most of whom are serving life sentences themselves, go to great lengths to ensure that their fellow inmate does not die alone. Prison officials say that the program has helped to transform one of the most violent prisons in the South into one of the least violent maximum-security institutions in the United States. Grace Before Dying looks at how, through hospice, inmates assert and affirm their humanity in an environment designed to isolate and punish.

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