Crime and punishment in Cajun country

While I was out photographing houses in the poor neighborhood behind my hotel, I noticed one guy in a funny-looking outfit: orange t-shirt and black and white striped pants. Pretty radical clothing for this conservative part of the world. (Not so radical to my Los Angeles eyes, however. Lots of people, including men, wear unconventional clothing in California. And since the wearer was a black man I thought he might be some new Tik-Tok fashion trend-setter.)

But when another man in an identical outfit stepped out from behind the trailer I shifted my focus from the small white house on the corner to the men, suddenly realizing these guys were prisoners of the Lafayette Parish Sheriff.

Old-timey convicts in stripes

And orange isn’t the new black here. Drawing on that old Southern tradition of work gangs dressed in black and white stripes, the local Sheriff has seemingly updated the uniform by replacing the top with the orange T-shirt with the word PRISONER printed on the back. Except that the third guy from the right in the photo above appears to be dressed in classic black and white stripes from the top down to his black rubber boots.

One thing became clear: these uniforms were not intended to fit properly, as you can see in the photo below, where the man is hitching up his pants. Maybe these uniforms are just transitional. Maybe when all the old black and white stripes wear out the new uniform will be 100% orange t-shirts and pants or even 100% orange jumpsuits. Or maybe the Sheriff will just stick with this conspicuous combination.

Picking up poor people’s trash?

So what were their crimes? I don’t know. But the punishment was to pick up the trash beside and in the drainage ditch that lined the street. And it struck me as a curious location for that kind of effort: a narrow side street in a very poor neighborhood. In most cities people who are forced by law enforcement to pick up trash are sent into affluent neighborhoods. Apparently not here. But perhaps they are simply working their way across Lafayette. It’s a small city with old-time Cajun roots and work gangs could be out every day moving from street to street keeping the city clean. I will have to keep an eye out for them.

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