A dance at a Louisiana prison gives fathers and daughters a rare moment to reunite

BATON ROUGE, La. — Leslie Harris has missed most milestones in his daughter’s life while serving a decades-long sentence in Louisiana for armed robbery and is unlikely to get out before her prom, her graduation and maybe even her wedding.

But for one night at Louisiana’s largest maximum-security prison, Harris made his own moment with his 17-year-old daughter while donning a custom tux and clutching a bouquet of roses: reuniting at the prison’s first father-daughter dance, where they embraced to Stevie Wonder’s “Isn’t She Lovely” at a pink-heavy party this month that was widely shared on social media.

“Seeing her in a dress, crying and running to me just broke me down,” said Harris, who has nine years left on his sentence, in a phone interview from the Louisiana State Penitentiary. “It made me think of all the years I missed out on in her life ---More....”