The N-5 Special Management Unit, which as of 2001 holds some 50 prisoners, is a special protection unit for prisoners at risk. The unit houses former prison officials, convicted ex-police officers from New Orleans, contract killers, pedophiles, and young people with life sentences.[4]
Wade opened in 1980.[5] Thirty-nine percent of the beds at Wade are "maximum custody."[6]
As is typical of prisons in rural areas, many of the correctional officers who work at Wade are from the local Haynesville-Homer area.[7]
History
According to police, in July 2017 a prisoner kidnapped the daughter of the warden, and the kidnapping resulted in her death. The inmate died during a shootout with prison guards.[8]
David Wade
The prison is named for Lieutenant GeneralDavid Wade, who was reared in Claiborne Parish. Wade procured more than a dozen medals in three wars and served in the administration of GovernorJohn McKeithen as the state corrections director after he retired from military service in 1967.[9]
On August 1, 1963, Wade was promoted to lieutenant general and assumed command of SAC's Second Air Force with headquarters then at Barksdale Air Force Base in Bossier City, some fifty miles west of his hometown of Homer, Louisiana.[11]
^"La. prison guards least paid." The Advocate. January 29, 2001. Retrieved on October 2, 2010. "largest employer Many of the 487 officers are from the HomerHaynesville area[...]
