In 1988, Loyola University of New Orleans' Twomey Center for Peace Through Justice established the Rideau Project. The purpose of the project is to obtain freedom for Wilbert Rideau, who has received unequal treatment in the Calcasieu Parish and Louisiana justice systems. In 1990, The Rideau Project undertook a major research project to study and analyze the history of the Calcasieu Parish justice system with regard to murderers. The objective was to determine whether Wilbert Rideau had been treated the same as other convicted murderers from that parish. Using records from Calcasieu Parish Clerk of Court's office, the Secretary of State's office, and newspaper archives, the Rideau Project studied murder convictions from the date of the earliest extant records (1889) to 1976.

The Rideau Project chose 1976 as an end-date in part because one series of Calcasieu Parish Criminal Records ledgers ends there and the next series continues for another decade. More important, however, was the recognition that Wilbert Rideau's 1961 conviction dates from the pre-Civil Rights period, when one expects to find racial inequities. Extending the study of Calcasieu Parish to 1976 took the research well beyond the dark days of the Jim Crow South and firmly into an era in which one might reasonably expect to find enlightened progress toward the equitable treatment of African Americans.

As part of the study of Calcasieu murderers, the Rideau Project compiled clemencies to convicted Calcasieu murderers - and eventually to all Louisiana murderers - using records from 1889 until the present. The study was copyrighted as "The Rideau Report." Some of its findings, which have been updated, are summarized below.

Calcasieu Parish, Louisiana
• Wilbert Rideau has been imprisoned longer than any other offender in the history of Calcasieu Parish. See Calcasieu Murderers.

• Every black man convicted of murdering a white person in Calcasieu Parish was given the death penalty when it was available as a legal punishment.

• By contrast, the death sentencing rate for whites convicted of murdering whites was 23.3% and for blacks convicted of murdering other blacks, 10.4%

• No white person was convicted of murdering a black person in Calcasieu until 1962, the year after Mr. Rideau's conviction.

• Through 1976, only four whites were convicted of murdering blacks in Calcasieu Parish. One was sentenced to Death, three to Life. The one sentenced to Death bought a pardon and was released after serving 17 years (he never even went to Death Row). The three Lifers served 9, 10, and 20 years, respectively.

• The average sentence served by murderers from Calcasieu prior to 1961 was a little more than seven years. Since 1961, the average sentence has been about 14 years. See Clemencies to Calcasieu Murderers.

• No black man convicted of murdering a white person in Calcasieu Parish has ever been released from prison.

• The longest-confined prisoner in the history of Louisiana was a black man convicted of murdering a white person. His Calcasieu death sentence was commuted by the governor in 1921, and he spent nearly 50 years in the Hospital for the Criminally Insane.

Louisiana
• There were thirteen other men on Angola's Death Row on April 11, 1962, the day Wilbert Rideau arrived. One died; twelve were released. Mr. Rideau is the only one still in prison. See Death Row, April 11, 1962.

• Wilbert Rideau has been imprisoned longer than any other former Death Row inmate in Louisiana.

• Thirty-one convicted Louisiana murderers were processed into Angola the same year Wilbert Rideau arrived. Six had death sentences; 25 had life sentences. Five were from Calcasieu Parish. One died in prison after three years. All the rest (except Wilbert Rideau) have been released either through clemency or the courts. See All Murderers Received at Angola, 1962.

• Nearly 700 clemencies have been given to Louisiana murderers since Wilbert Rideau entered the system in 1961. Other Louisiana murderers have been released through court action that resulted in judicially amended sentences or plea bargains in lieu of new trials.

• Wilbert Rideau has been imprisoned longer than any convicted murderer ever freed from a Louisiana prison.

• Wilbert Rideau has now been imprisoned longer than all but four convicted murderers in Louisiana history. See Louisiana's Longest Imprisoned Murderers.