In 1990, about one-half mile off U.S. 165 — some four miles south of Oberlin — the Allen Parish economy was expected to get a boost from an increasingly familiar source — a prison.

“When it opens in December the $32 million, state-of-the art Allen Correctional Center should circlate about $5.5 million annually through parish cash registers and company accounts,” reads the July 31, 1990, Lake Charles American Press.

The third of three new medium security state prisons funded by the state Legislature, the center was the second to be turned over to a private corrections and security business, and was expected to provide about 200 new jobs for residents of the parish.

Officials with the Wackenhut Corrections Corporation said the majority of the people they expected to hire would be locals — “an important aspect of keeping the impact of a multi-million dollar payroll and other revenue-generating activity in the parish,” the newspaper reads.

Already making good on that promise, DeRidder native Larry Jeanes — a 22-year veteran of the Louisiana Department of Corrections — had been named the facility’s warden. At that point, Jeanes had already served tours of duty at prisons in Angola, DeQuincy and Pineville.

“This is a state-of-the-art facility,” Jeanes told the American Press. “If you can’t keep people in this prison, you’ve got problems.”

Wackenhut’s director of operations, Robert Barncastle, told the newspaper the majority of the $5.5 million impact the new prison was expected to have will come in the area of food services. The company expected to spend about $2.2 million per year feeding the inmates.

The privately run prison didn’t have to worry about state bid laws or hiring through civil service, either. The ownership also changed the scope of what prisoners do with their spare time. Education programs normally offered in prisons — such as welding and other skilled crafts — gave way to literacy and computer courses.

“Our goal at this facility — as it is at our other facilities — will be to make sure that every man that leaves here can read and write and has the chance to at least obtain his GED,” said John Andrews, Wackenhut’s director of programs.

Andrews told the newspaper the key to lowering recidivism rates — the rates at which criminals return to prison after serving one term — is rehabilitation.

“The key it to make sure a man leaves here with a marketable skill,” he said. “Crime pays much better than minimum wage.

“I can teach anyone who is literate basic data entry,” he said. “You can’t even get a job in an auto parts store without some knowledge of it because all of their invetories are automated.”