1. Background

2. Career

3. Death

4. References

Rollo Charles Lawrence, Sr., known as Rollo C. Lawrence (April 10, 1894 – October 1, 1968),^[1] was a Democratic politician from his native Pineville, Louisiana, who was allied with Governor Earl Kemp Long. He was the mayor of Pineville from 1930 to 1946 and thereafter the first superintendent of the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola in West Feliciana Parish.

Background

Little is available on Lawrence's background. He signed up for the United States Army draft at the age of twenty-three in World War I, but it is not clear if he served. He listed his occupation as the grocery business. He and his wife, the former Nellie Alvania Wells (October 9, 1895 – December 13, 1992), had four children, Rollo, Jr., Sidone, Sybil, and Shirley Annette Lawrence ^[2] Information is unavailable on Lawrence's life during the decade of the 1920s and the time that he left state employment in 1951 until his death seventeen years later.

Career

His second election as mayor in 1934 was carried in out-of-town newspapers.^[3] With sixteen years of tenure, he is the third-longest-serving Pineville mayor, exceeded by Fred Baden, who held the position from 1970 to 1998, and the current mayor, Clarence R. Fields, in office since December 1999. Lawrence and sitting State Representative Richmond C. Hathorn were indicted in 1939 for dual office-holding or being "deadheads"—officials who are paid for doing little or no real or needed work, on the state payroll. The indictment was part of a general sweep of corruption in Rapides Parish. Sheriff U. T. Downs, who had been the mayor of Pineville from 1918 to 1926, was indicted for malfeasance in office.^[4] Downs died a year and a half after his indictment, by which time he was no longer sheriff.

Earl Long's gubernatorial predecessor (and third successor in the office as well), Jimmie Davis, created the office of superintendent at Angola by combining the former general manager and warden positions. In 1950, Long brought back the office of warden to meet patronage demands of office-seekers who had supported him for governor in the bitter race in 1948 against Sam H. Jones. The return of the warden's position created renewed infighting with the subsequent superintendents over the division of authority. In 1948, with the start of his second term, Long appointed Rollo Lawrence as the penitentiary superintendent. Though he was not a professional penologist, Lawrence had a strong interest in rehabilitation of criminals.^[5]

Working with Lawrence as the prison rehabilitation director was James Monroe Smith, the former president of Louisiana State University in Baton Rouge who had pleaded guilty in 1939 to three charges of forgery and one of embezzlement; he was sentenced to eight-to-twenty-four years at Louisiana State Penitentiary. He was sentenced to thirty months in the federal prison at the United States Penitentiary, Atlanta in Georgia on charges of mail fraud and income tax evasion. In 1945, Governor Davis commuted Smith's sentence; both he and Smith were natives of Jackson Parish in North Louisiana. Had Davis not authorized the commutation, Smith would have been an inmate at Angola at the time Lawrence was the superintendent.^[5] Lawrence and Smith believed that the state should make an "honest effort" to steer inmates, particularly first offenders, into occupational skills which they could use upon release from incarceration. The two questioned the penal farms in which prisoners were used commercially for often back-breaking labor but not given usable occupational skills to help them find gainful employment once released from confinement.^[6]

Joining in the call for prisoner rehabilitation was Margaret Dixon, the influential{{Citation needed|date=June 2016}} managing editor of The Baton Rouge Morning Advocate until her death in 1970 and a Long-appointee to the LSU Board of Supervisors. Nearly forty Angola prisoners engaged in self-mutilation to call attention to what they saw as inhumane prison practices. An investigation conducted by Lawrence revealed only two cases where prisoners had been beaten and in both the guards had acted in self-defense when attacked.^[6] Lawrence resigned as prison superintendent in May 1951.^[7]

Death

Lawrence died in 1968 at the age of seventy-four. He and his wife are interred at Greenwood Memorial Park in Pineville.^[1][8][9]

References

Rollo Charles Lawrence, Sr.

after=Willie E. Kees, Jr.}}

• Radiation belt storm probes
• Radiation (biology)
• Radiation biology
• Radiation chemistry
• Radiation colitis
• Radiation condition
• Radiation conditions
• Radiation Constant
• Radiation cooling
• Radiation damage
• Radiation-Damage Dating
• Radiation damping
• Radiation dermatitis
• Radiation Detector
• Radiation detector
• Radiation (disambiguation)
• Radiation-dominated era
• Radiation Effects Research Foundation
• Radiation emission
• Radiation emissions
• Radiation enteritis
• Radiation enteropathy
• Radiation (evolution)
• Radiation Exposure
• Radiation Exposure Compensation Act