- These vests are stab proof, but you know our throats aren't. We have targets on
our back right now. - So what's your problem? - Don't be turnin' to me man. (beep) - [CO] Don't move!
- [Officer] Don't! - Timothy Allen coming
out unrestrained is a little nerve racking. I'm still gonna do my
job but I don't plan on staying at level six. - I don't have
keys, this is awful. My older brother
Derek works here and he recommended the prison and I was like that's insane
I'm not gonna go there I don't wanna die. But, here I am
working at a prison as a little kid pretty much. - Originally, I'm from
Guadalajara, Mexico. My parents actually smuggled
me into the United States. Just havin' this job is
like my first normal job. - [Officer] Let's go guys, get
to your unit! (percussion music) - Prison systems, they're
very difficult, dangerous and unforgiving environments - Your job is to make sure
inmates don't kill themselves or kill other
inmates and or staff. The inmates just as much
as you're watching them, they're watching you. They will capitalize
on anything you do. - When I just watch the way
they move the way they talk I just use that against them. - Do you know why I got the
rest of my life in here. So you know what, one
day, it might be five, ten years from now. You just sit back
and you know what, the chance presents itself
just do what you have to do. - The CO's they
got two shifts that come on in the
mornin' two shifts that come on in the evenin'. The (beep) shift was workin'. So I knew how they get down
the way they move around. I use a big coffee jar, filled
it with about a weeks worth of feces and germicide that
we clean our cells with. When they come in for chow
they can pass the trays out. They pop the whole single row
on the bottom then they do it on the top. Eased up on my victim, gotta try to bust
his head wide open. I wanted to put his
brains on that dinner tray that he had in his hand and
pour that jar over his head. That wound would
never heal again, I was tryin' to murder him. - In the younger
stages of any career, you're more apt
to make mistakes. Making a mistake
in another profession may have less impact, making
a mistake as a young rookie inside a prison
can be devastating. - It's not the first
time it happened and it ain't gonna
be the last time. (calm music) - [Andy] Watch this here. - [Israel] Lemme see. Oh this the footage
you lookin' at? Now where am I lookin'? - [Andy] Watch this guy here. - Mhmm. He's gettin' his shoes. He's puttin' the shoes on. See he has something,
right there. You see that right?
-Mhmm. Then he runs over there
to this guy, now watch. It's almost like hey, hold
this for me til I come back. - Here it is. - Puts it underneath his mattress.
- [Israel] Under there. Yeah. - [Andy] 111. - [Israel] Okay. - Working at the level two
is definitely overwhelming it's just at all times
you have to stay alert. When you walk into a dorm
it's maybe one or two officers to 150 to 200 inmates. It's very easy for
something to pop off. (intense music) - The lieutenants, they're
definitely watching me and they're seeing how I work. Last week at the
level six I refused inmate Phillip
Latham's tier time. - You get tier time;
you're the only one? - I was definitely
uncomfortable with it, I don't wanna do it. I thought there was a
safer decision to make but I wanna be a good partner
to the people I work with. I do feel more pressure to
succeed in my second career. I'm not only doin'
it for myself, I feel like my parents
bringing me to the states, all the sacrifice and risk
they took to bring me here, it would suck if I
didn't do anything. I feel like I need
to prove myself but so far I haven't
found anything. - [Israel] This your house? - [Israel] Quick, just give
us a second, all right? (radio voice drowned
out by music) - Razor blades in here. (radio voice drowned
out by music) - Officer Hue, he's an
experienced officer. It was a little
bit intimidating. He knows better place
to look than me. - Shakedowns are difficult
for rookie officers. It takes a long time to
really start thinkin' like an inmate. If a rookie officer overlooks
something during a shakedown, or if it's drugs that can
lead to an assault, if it's a knife or
a weapon or a shank, obviously that can lead to
a major assault or a murder. It's very very important that
these young officers go in, take their time, do
their due diligence and make it a safe
environment not only for the officers but
- A nice little packet. (calm music) - Now 15 claims
to be, or attempts to be mute but he's not deaf. Give a clear verbal directive and we'll call
out the first one. - Uh we have an inmate that's
refusing to be restrained so we're gonna see
what their problem is. - Inmate (beep) come to
the door and be restrained. We're gonna gas you and you're
comin' out of this cell. I wouldn't recommend if you
take that course of action, I think you should probably
come up and be restrained. If you don't do that,
that's a grown man decision you're makin' on your own. You understand? - If you have an inmate
that's refusing to move, come out of their
cell, for some reason maybe they have contraband
or a weapon we do procedures and precautions
to move them out. He's refusing. Worst part about this job
is the unpredictable stuff, not knowing what an inmate has
you have to be very careful, you could not go home. All the stuff that's been
going on with the SNM and the threats they put
out on law enforcement. It's been a rough
year for New Mexico. (upbeat music) The recent tragedies
of cops being killed, especially here in New Mexico,
it hits a sense of home. It makes me wanna
watch out for people that are in this job
with you as well. So what I decided to
join the extraction team. - [Mangin] The extraction team
consists with a shield man, strong-arm strong
leg, weak leg weak arm and then you have a camera guy. And our job is to
go in there whatever that inmates' doing to
control him, get him cuffed, bring him out safe,
take him to medical and find out whatever's
wrong with him. - U-POD! - Yeah, if there's anybody that wants to be evacuated
go and take (mumbling). - [Cordova] Gonna go or stay? - Anytime they call
for responders, you're a little more on edge. If this inmate wasn't
willing to cooperate, OC chemicals were deployed
so we escort these inmates around him to the pod,
just to make sure, you can never be too careful. - My name is Sergeant
Edward Urtiaga. The camera person
is Jason Martinez. The reason for the extraction
is the inmate refusing to be restrained. This is my extraction team. - Cohen Mangin, shield man. Shield extraction certified. I am the shield guy; I'm
the first guy to go in. I grew up in a
correctional family, my father he was a
CERT team commander. And he was in on the extraction team so that's what I wanna do, and
just making my family proud. Put our gas masks on. The extraction team,
a lot of the CO's had, you know at least three
or plus years on me. Being young and having
that type of pressure on my back to you know,
you better come out and we're picking you to do
this, that in a sense is kinda dangerous because I
could get someone hurt. (upbeat music) You gotta get real serious because this is
potentially an inmate that he doesn't wanna
come out for some reason. When you go in there he could
injure you or your partners. He obviously has somethin'
or or is trying, like I said, to hurt staff so we
gotta try and isolate him and prevent it, from him
hurting any other inmate or any of the staff members. (distant chatter) (calm music) - First day working in the
prison was probably the hardest. I didn't know what I
was doing I was lost. I was, I was frightened and I didn't wanna
leave my control. That was scary. At first glance Western
is just a huge facility with one giant tower. There's eight different units. One unit there's about 60
inmates that I constantly have to be watching and make
sure all the inmates are inside the unit. If I can't see an inmate,
they could be doing anything. They could be dealing drugs,
they could be doing drugs, they could be fighting, they
could be jumping someone so if I'm not
there to watch them then that's when
bad things happen. - For what, for what? - They told me I have
to go down there. - They didn't call you. - [Inmate] No?
- No. There's a lot of
stuff going on at once and I kinda have to put
myself in 20 places at once. But there is the tower
and the tower can can see if they're fighting,
if they're doing things they shouldn't be so it's sort
of like watching over me. - Unit two officer. - Go ahead. - 10-4. - Minimum foot
patrol, what's your 20? - You guys gotta get in. - [Inmates] (beeps) Okay you don't have
to just get in. It's bad that I don't
know where my guys are at and they leave their
designated area and it just makes me look bad. (beep) -[Abeyta] Um, I don't
know yet, hold on. Who is outside? (fast-paced music) - [Abeyta] They keep on
saying people are outside, I don't know where they're at. - [Abeyta] Yes. - [Abeyta] Who is outside? - [Abeyta] Yes. - I don't think so. (fast-paced music) - [Abeyta] Where is this guy? I accidentally left a gate open and that makes me feel so
unsafe, it makes me feel unsafe for others 'cause you don't
know where that inmates going, they could be going anywhere. You don't know what
they're thinking in their mind you don't know
if they have anything bad that they're thinking. - The most important
aspects of the job that these young correctional
officers have to do, we have to have
control and custody of our inmates at all times. You leave a door open,
somebody's gonna get assaulted. You leave a gate open,
somebody's gonna escape. Somebody escapes they're
gonna get out they're gonna to hurt and/or rob or
rape an innocent civilian, so these things are huge for
these young adults to learn. (calm music) - I've been working at
PNM for 10 months now as a rookie officer. A lot of people don't make
it as far as I've made it. I think almost
everybody doubted me. I'm proud of myself for
staying here this long. - I been at the level six, but now I'm at south at level
five in housing unit 1A. Here at the level five it's
pretty dangerous compared to the level six. Here they get more privileges. It's a tough job, it
looks easy some days but it's really hard. - Shower?
- Yeah. - [Ariel] Do you need your
razor? - Do you need your razor? - [Inmate] Uh no. - It's our first day here
so we're both getting a feel for each other and
how each other work. Coming to a new post
is a little difficult. In 3-A, the inmates knew
what I expected of them and what they could
expect from me and here it's just
a lot different. The inmates need to
know how you work, if there's a line that
you have to draw. I like to let 'em know how
things are the first week I get here. - No. - [Inmate] No? - I'm only gonna fill the
chemicals up once a week. - [Inmate] Once a week? - You guys don't
need it that much. (mumbling) - We're only gonna
fill it up once a week. So we only get a certain amount
of chemicals every week and the other shift fills the
showers up once and so do we. But these inmates, we've
never worked a unit with them before. They think they can
get whatever they want, and that they can get
chemicals everyday and. There's no need for
chemicals everyday. - [Inmate] Who said that? - Me. - [Inmate] Why? - Per policy, it says the last
person gets the chemicals. - [Inme] Per policy? - Yeah. - Yup, okay. I have to go in super bitchy 'cause you're going in there
with inmates they're not there to be a friend you're not there to be their friend
you're there to do a job. - Ariel's a rookie CO
and she's still learning how to do her job. For them to come in here
and have to be confident. And at the same time, they
have to tread lightly you have to deal with all kinds
of different personalities. If you're not respectful
with the way you treat people than that's how
you lose respect. (calm music) (radio talk drowned
out by music) - What you got there? - [Israel] Another officer
pulling through a pack of sugars. I wanna say it was about
25 packets of sugar. - [Israel] What's it look like? - I don't know what it is. Could be a pill. - In one of those packets, there was a white
substance hidden in there. - [CO] If its just aspirin, why
would he wrap it up so good? - Yeah that was a
good hiding spot. I would have never found
that in the sugar like that. It bothers me a little
bit but the department's relying on you to
not make a mistake. In the immigrant world like
having a state job is like the ultimate. So I mean... you know I wanna be
part of the team. - [Israel] What
color does it turn? (calm music) - This is sergeant
Urtiaga I need you to come to your food port
to be transferred. I'm gonna tell you one
more time either you come to the food port
to be restrained or chemicals agents will
be deployed at this time. (calm music) - [Urtiaga] Come to the food
port and be restrained! Stand up! Come to the food port
and be restrained. Come to the food port
and be restrained. Stand up and come
to the food port. Come to the food port. (beep) - This is Lieutenant
Salazar come to the door and be restrained. - [Mangin] He's going
towards underneath his bunk. - Come to the door,
come to the door! Come to the door! - The inmate actually
took about two and a half cans of mace
and he wasn't complying. You know, I have never really
seen an inmate do that, usually when you spray
they give up right away but the dude was drenched
in mace and he handled it. Obviously it was not
effective to him. - Wow. - [] We're gonna go in. - [Salazar] Alright. - Being the shield guy,
I'm the first guy to go in. And you got those nerves,
those butterflies; you don't wanna make a mistake. Bad mistake, that's gonna
cost them their life forever. - We're gonna go in. - [Salazar] Alright. - Being the shield guy,
I'm the first guy to go in. And you got those nerves,
those butterflies; you don't wanna make a mistake. Bad mistake that's gonna
cost them their life forever. (beep) (screaming) - [Officer] Give me your hand. - It was hard for us
already cause the floor was slippery but we ran in there and we were able to contain him so he couldn't do anything else. (upbeat music) - D-pod asked, there's
not any germicide. - [Ariel] Mhmm. - No, it's the last
person that showers that's supposed to get
chemicals... alright. - Well if you have
chemical in your room then... - [Inmate] Just to let you
know, since you're an expert. - Alright. - One of the most
common mistakes that a rookie makes
is coming into a unit for the first time and getting into a fight not understanding
to what they're going into who they're dealing with. There's rules and they're
gonna conform to our rules and do what we say but
how you deal with them and how you may get
that information across is very important. - [Inmate] I mean por favor. - [Inmate] That policy
pertains to getting supplies once a week doesn't mean
that we clean our shower once a week. - Just try to use it
as wisely, you know. - Yeah. - Ariel as a rookie none of
these inmate know who she is or what she's about. It's a little frustrating but what I'm trying
to pass on is that when they don't get their
things, these inmates tend to get a little hostile. And get upset when a inmate and that inmate can
actually turn against you. - Daniel doesn't like
argue with people, but I don't want inmates
to walk all over me. They get mad, but you have to
let 'em know where they stand and put 'em in their place. (calm music) - [Israel] What
color does it turn? - It looks a little bit
blue on the side there. - We do a urine analysis when
a suspect is found with drugs. This is my first time
doing a drug test. They come over to the
cage, we strip 'em. - [Israel] Yes, please. Open your mouth for me. Thank you. Thank you. - [Israel] Did you go through
those pants already? - [CO] Yeah. - Then we give him an hour so
he can urinate in a test cup. So yeah, you got
an hour to do a UA. And um do we keep him here or
can he go back to his unit? Keep him here? - He's gotta stay here.
- [Israel] Okay. What we do after that
we go to the bathroom, we make sure we keep our
eyes on him at all times, we wait for the result
right in front of him. - [CO] We'll take it outside, we'll take it outside with us. (calm music) - [Israel] So he's positive
right here on the pink one, trying to find what
kind of substance it is but uh so far he's positive. It doesn't tell you the color
code for it, for what it is? Yeah that's the only one. The third one to your left. - [Officer] It shows it clearly. - [Israel] That's what the pink
means? The UA test came out
positive for suboxone. Subxone is a big deal, it's
our biggest problem here at the prison so. (calm music) - They administer suboxone
through dirty syringes; I've seen guys put it
inside their eyelids; they dispose it in
water and shoot it up. And once a guy's under the
influence of that suboxone, you know who knows
what he's capable of I mean his temper can flare. - [Officer] Yeah he was pretty
nervous. - [Israel] He looks nervous
now, can you tell? So maybe that packet
is somethin' else too. (calm music) Sarg. The third
one to your left. - [Officer] It shows it clearly. - [Israel] What does this go to? - [Israel] Alright. - [CO in hat] Stay right there. - You saw that it was positive
before you even walked out of the bathroom. - You showed me two lines,
it said the pink line was right there and that
means that if the line show up that it's negative and the
line was there, man. - I am a little irritated,
that's what inmates do, they analyze you
to see what kind of mistake you're gonna make. It's just gonna
make me look bad. It's just a bad day all around. We supposed to keep
him in the restroom so he can see his results,
which he did, which he did. But, pullin' him out
too soon is a mistake, it's just an excuse for
him to fight the case and get it thrown out. - [Inmate] What's up Varette? - What's up? (calm music) - Any mistake here in any
situation can be a large mistake. Whether the case gets
thrown out or we win the case with this inmate,
he can get angry and put a hit on
me down the line or jump me when I'm
workin' at level two. Ya know you can't take
it as a small mistake. - [Inmate] It's 10-15 minute... - Okay, the thing about
it is, if you came... - You saw that it was positive before you even walked
out of the bathroom. - She show me two red over
there... - Totally understandable,
what you do is when this officer
writes you up, what you can do is you
state that on the appeal. That you wasn't there
when the test was read, think the officers put
something in and then that's, that's the way it
goes on the appeal. Because that's your right. - It's hard to have an
inmate in your custody and they're sittin' there and
telling you to do your job, it's embarrassing
for the officer and it's frustrating as well and if an inmate calls
you out on something, learn from that mistake and don't make the
same mistake twice. (calm music) - Lock it down
they keep goin' in and out. - Was that housing
unit two? - Affirmative. - Over, go ahead
and secure your pod doors. (fast-paced music) - [Abeyta] Oh yeah. - They want us to
lock you guys in. That feels terrible. I feel like I didn't do my
job to the best of my ability and that's when
somebody will get hurt. Uhh, they told us
to lock you in. (mumbling) - So you guys gotta go back in. Are you in here? - [Inmate] No. - The inmates know I
messed up it is my fault that I have to lock them away. They get mad at you
and that's pretty scary because that's when these guys
will take advantage of you. This is annoying. As a CO, the margin
of errors is so small. If you mess up on one thing,
then somebody's gonna die. It could be a CO, it
could be an inmate, it could be anyone and
that's what's scary about it, that's why the
stakes are so high. (calm music) - When I hit the inmate, you
know the shield broke in half, it cut me open. (mumbling) - [Officer] Sit him up on the
exam table. - You have to worry
about getting HIV, or Hep C or getting a disease. I don't wanna bring that
stuff home to my family. I felt it happening but
my adrenaline was going so much that I didn't
care at the time, I just wanted to get that inmate
restrained and get him out. But, it's scary, what happens
if I got this the rest of my life? You gotta go over to medical. - [Andrew] What happened? - When we went in on the guy,
I hit him with the shield and the shield broke in
half so then it came up and it cut my arm and then a
few other officer's arms, but we're alright. (intense music) - Must have been a
defective shield. - Yeah. - Having a partner like
Mangin is the greatest thing I could ask for here
at the penitentiary in Mexico 'cause I mean we
just work super good together. We where introduced
in the academy, since day one we just kind of you know cool with each other to
now, we're just, you
know super close. And he a super good partner,
a really good friend I mean I consider
the guy family, I mean I consider
the guy a brother. - Everything was
good, he complied, now he's in medical and
everything's alright. - Hell yeah. - Yeah, I'm good (beep).
- [Cordova] Good (beep). (calm music) - I've never been so tired
before in my whole life. It's just been crazy;
today's been a blur. When I actually found the
inmate I was so relieved because if that inmate would
have been somewhere else where he shouldn't have been then I would have
been in trouble. Being in prison's just an
uncomfortable environment for me. my biggest challenge is just
having to leave my house and come to this place. On my days off I lay in bed
I'm like oh my gosh I don't wanna go back,
sometimes I don't, I don't wanna go back
in there but you got to. - I got a few calls from
your administration. - Oh, really? - Some things that maybe
you and I should talk about. - Oh. - There's been a few
issues going on with you. Fabian is a very young cadet. The first couple weeks on the
job is the most difficult. Being the Chief Instructor
here at the Academy, I take my job very seriously to make sure these young
rookie correctional officers have what it takes to make it. I understand that you're new and this is probably a pretty
overwhelming environment for you, right? - Yes, it's crazy. - But, no matter
how crazy it gets you should never
leave a gate open. You have to understand
that, that's huge. Remember tool and key controls are vital inside an institution. More than likely that
would be your job. - The inmates are just
giving me a hard time. - [Bell] Right. - They're just, they're rowdy
in there, they're crazy, they like to yell
and stuff like that so it's really overwhelming. - Remember we talked
about command presence. If an inmate laughs at
you, you write him up you hold him accountable
for his actions. You set that precedence, right? - Yes. - This is big time, you're in a man's
world right now, right? - Yup. - So understand that. We talked about all this
during academy, right? The longer that you're here
the more you'll retain, the more you'll learn, the
easier the job will get, okay? - [Abeyta] Okay. - If you ever need anything, you know my office is
open to you, alright? (calm music) - Can you switch the top? Gonzales? Gonzales? - [Gonzales] Ariel. - What? I think the inmates are
mad because they know that I'm not gonna let
them have certain things or do things. And I'm not gonna be
one of those CO's that are gonna let things slide. - We just need one more
in here, in C Pod right? Do we have someone in D6? - As a rookie officer
you have to be able to show command presence but
we have to be very cautious and you have to be
on your toes 24/7. - C1! - People don't like authority. People don't like
being told what to do. If you come in with the attitude that this is your
home these inmates are renting the space from you. They have to conform
to our rules, they will retaliate
at some point you will be assaulted bottom line. (beep) (fast-paced music) - We were assaulted by an
inmate. Partner and I were
escorting him to the yard. He tried to kick us and so
we had to take him down and spray him so we had to
set gas for a little while. (fast-paced music) That was my first time
taking down an inmate. Pretty intense and it was
definitely an eye opener. I'm pretty sure like, if
not all of the facility, like 90% of them showed up, but it still felt like forever
when we were laying on the ground once we were holding him
down, like is anyone gonna come? You don't really think
anything of it until it happens. - We have riots and assaults
that happen everyday on correctional officers. The first time either a
correctional officer is assaulted and or has to use
force on an inmate, that right there
is a turning point for this correctional officer, either he or she decides
this is the job for me or I'm not coming back. - [Ariel] It's really
emotional, like the incident could have got a lot
worse than it did, and I could have
really been hurt. (slow music) - This job can be stressful,
it catches up to you. I've been through a lot of
difficult things in my life but this job will definitely
test you on any given day. It was definitely harder
than any job I ever done. Its definitely days, I
walk out of the facility and I question the decision I
made of going to work there. Being away from home and from
my wife, it's very difficult to go home alone. Sometimes I think
I'm crazy that I made this change you know. But I'm grateful for the New Mexico
corrections department 'cause they took a chance on me, so I mean I have to to stick
that out. (upbeat music) - As rookie officer
you have to understand that any given time,
you're gonna make mistakes. But take a short cut
in this line of work, you go left when you
should have went right, you do something that
you're not supposed to do, that could be your life. - Can't let that happen
again, I can't let that happen ever
because it made me feel like I didn't have any
control over my inmates. - We make mistakes you know
especially when you're busy. Definitely a learning experience
for me and it humbles me at the same time. It kinda motivated me to keep
moving and growing as a CO. - In this job it could
be very dangerous, you may get hurt and it's scary but no matter what we
have to do whatever we have to do to protect
your brother and sisters. - [Ariel] Some people just
aren't cut out for the job. Even when you are it
still takes a toll on you. After being assaulted, you kinda, it makes you wonder, I dont know if I wanna to
continue here or what. (dramatic music) - Hey - I hate this unit. I'm 18 years old,
dealing with felons. - Sometimes I don't
know what I'm doing. - I don't know how to use these. - I think they're
tattooing in two. Ultimately, that's the goal just to be able to sense
when these guys are actually up to something. - Log on to see so you can start
monitoring some phone calls. (beep) - [Mangin] No matter
how long that you work here, any date something
dangerous could happen. (beep) - Take him
down, take him down!
