Lester Holt 'Jailed' for Report On Criminal Justice

Lester Holt reports on criminal justice

Lester Holt, anchor of NBC's Nightly News, recently spent three days locked up and embedded in Louisiana State Penitentiary for an NBC News report on criminal justice reform.  The prison is called Angola and Holt stayed in a cell block reserved for high-risk offenders and spoke with guards and prisoners about what life is like inside the prison.

For two nights, he slept in a cell in Angola’s death row, alongside prisoners who were locked inside except for an hour a day of recreation in the prison yard. The man in the cell next to him hadn’t been outside in four years, reports The Associated Press.


“The only time I did feel perfectly safe was inside my cell with the door locked,” Holt said.