(ominous music) (screaming indistinctly) - We're on the first
responders list. - Chill out! - [CO] You need to comply
with my directives. - You are basically in a
fight every single day. - The way to be more successful is switching up your routine. Come on. - Do you have what it takes? - Quitting is the
last thing that would cross my mind in
anything that I do. - Javier is really motivated and he's starting
to become a leader. - Just jumping in
the cold water, seeing how it feels
for the first time. Practice makes perfect, I guess. - I was assaulted by an inmate. Eventually the prisoners
just start to wear on you. (inmates howling) You just dread coming
to a place like this. - [CO] Let's go guys,
go into your unit! (upbeat music) - We're not at war
with our inmates. On the other hand, to deny the existence
of evil and predators in our prisons would be foolish. The men and women of
corrections have to stand ready to visit violence
at a given moment. [beep] [beep] - You never know what
could happen like, somebody could wake up
in a bad mood one day. [beep] - Correctional officers have
to constantly watch their back. Their awareness level
is always in the red. - You never even sleep
comfortable you know, because you never know
what could happen next. Nobody's safe, nobody. - Bad things happen
really quick, as a rookie officer, you
know, we try to train and better prepare our staff to deal with these
types of criminals. But for some of our young
rookie correctional officers, this is not the place for them. (ominous electronic music) - Officer Montoya was
assaulted by an inmate I hope that it doesn't
impact her so significantly that that she feels like she doesn't want
to do this anymore. - We're seeing an
increase in attacks on our law enforcement. Anytime that our men and women
in corrections gets hurt, we do everything
we can to make sure that they know that
we care about them, we're supporting them and we
hope to walk them through it. But there will be young
men and women who we lose, and when it inevitably
occurs, because it will, it's deeply disappointing. (ominous electronic music) - R Pod! - Today we're escorting
inmate Darnell Smith to his disciplinary hearing. Inmate Smith tried to
persuade a female caseworker to give him her phone number. He has a history of doing
that with other staff members, female staff members. - I didn't have to
convince her, she, she fell in love on her own. I bought some rims from
him, my woman paid for them. Come to find out,
the rims is stolen. I chase this dude
into the corridor, get my head cracked open with
an aluminum baseball bat, so I took care of it. Put him in 16 pieces, and they never
found none of him. I got convicted of two counts of premeditated
first degree murder. - Dolly chains! - Darnell Smith is a
very dangerous inmate. Has a history being very
violent toward staff or he causes riots
and disturbances. Things like that
go from 0 to 100. You hesitate, that's
when someone gets hurt. You just have to be constantly
on your toes with him. - Okay. You're charged with 836, attempt to engage
in any unauthorized or inappropriate relationship, do you admit or deny? - Okay. There was an officer
that was sitting out there eavesdropping. He claims that I asked this
woman for her phone number. Which was ignorant,
that was stupid. I wouldn't do nothing like that. I wouldn't jeopardize
myself, let alone her. - He's very manipulative. He's not in here for
doing good things, he's in here for obviously
breaking the law. So we always have
to be cautious. - I have a lot of haters. I said that they
could take a number, meaning, a number
sitting in line, whatever and to be dealt with
they could get in line and I'd see them accordingly. - I'll look at everything,
take it under advisement. I'll review the evidence,
your testimony, everything, and I'll make a decision. - You too. No more reports. - Try not to. - The disciplinary
hearing went fine, but we always have to be
cautious with every single inmate. It doesn't matter
if it's a level six, a level five, a level three or
a guy that cleans the parks. Because a blink of an
eye a snap of your finger anything can happen. You have to always be
ready to go at any time. - Weed detail! I'm assigned to weed
detail right now, I just got all the inmates that are going to be
working with me today. I'm going to go ahead take them
outside issue them out tools and we'll start
cleaning outside. We just go around and cut weeds and pick up trash
and stuff like that. - If you guys are ready
I'll get you guys out there. - Yeah, well they already
called them out so, they should be coming out. For my first week to
actually be on the line and working by myself,
it was nerve racking. All I could see was a bunch
of inmates looking at me. I'm a little scared
but I'll get through. - You're on the pull up
bars, show me what you got. - As a kid, I would
always tell myself, "I want to be law enforcement,
I want to be law enforcement, "I want to be law enforcement." The whole way. - Javier Cazares,
he's really motivated, and he's starting to try and
become a leader of the class. I need two more. [beep] - I was one of the top
recruits in the academy. Let's go! Hurry up, get up! I do feel kind of
pressured since they saw that I was
good in everything. To live up to that, I don't want to do
anything to mess it up. - The first time that
you walk into a new post. That day, is a huge impact on
how you handle your business, your command presence,
the way you talk, the way that you
articulate yourself. Inmates are watching you. - It's really tough
when your new because, even though I've been through
a couple of trainings, right away you're
put into situations you're not prepared for. You ready? I have a little bit of concern their walking around
with equipment that could be used as weapons. You don't know
what they have done and they might try to fight. You're going to hit
somebody with those. You just gotta keep your
head up all the time because you never know
what's gonna happen. They could cause some
really good damage especially with
the rake and stuff. I'm looking to see what
their hands are doing. Make sure they're not
doing anything wrong or trying to pick up
things from the floor. If anything goes
down, I'm on my own. There's four of them
and there's one of me. - What's next, sir, boss? - You guys done? - Yes sir, boss. - We can't just go like that, I have to go get permission
first, so just go back. - [Javier] Yeah, and see
where we're gonna go. - I wanna work though. - Yeah, that's where we're
going, where the work is at. They said they wanted us
to clean inside dorm two, on the outside. It looks like I'm comfortable
but I don't wanna show them that I'm scared cause they
feed off of that kind of stuff. Why you guys are whispering
so much, hurry up! (ominous music) (ominous music) - I don't get really
scared on the job, I just get real nervous. Right before work, I
just have to drive around for like 20 minutes
just to calm my nerves. I know what people
I'm dealing with, I just don't know
what to expect. So I'm always kind of like
hoping for a good day. - I told you I was gonna be
on TV one day mom, I told you. - What separates our
Western New Mexico Correctional Facilities
from many others is the very high dense
population of street gangs. They come to prison and
they bring with themselves the politics of
their neighborhoods. - The Barrio Aztecas
and the Sureños are at a turf war. That means that there's gonna be a major level incident
involving two different gangs. At anytime they get the chance they will try to
kill one another. - What's up? - [Inmate] I'm hungry G! - I don't know what
to tell you, man. - [Inmate] It's right
outside go get that [beep]. - I'm not the rover. This is my first
time in segregation. All I really have to do is just monitor the well-being
of all the inmates. Hang on, I'm gonna get it. There you go, there's your food. Serve chow, showers,
recreation. So I just be all over. - Miller? We gotta go. Leg! We got to go. [beep] Where's it at? - Oh my God. - God! - Oh [beep]. - Oh [beep]. Where's it at? - Oh my God. - Oh wow, [beep]. We're totally last bro. - Me and one of the other
officers ran over there, realizing we had no idea
where M building was. If you're late another
officer might get hurt. We totally messed that one up. [beep] I caught the aftermath of it. I see three guys jumped
a single individual. I was a little disappointed. Whenever there's a situation, of course I wanna you know
jump in as quickly as possible. - Where there any
weapons involved? - Yeah. - Bring a nurse. We already had it handled and
by the time Chaz got there, it just goes real quick. Put your hands against the wall so we can watch
what was going on. It's very important you
learn fast response. - 105! - We locked it down,
did our investigation. Come to find out, he was
a California Sureño. These guys knew what he was
talking about in the pod, he didn't know there was
Barrio Azteca's in there and they jumped him. I'd rather have you sit down,
I don't want you falling, you understand? Do you understand me? Where does it hurt the most at? The back? The Barrio Azteca's have go for the Sureño's
out of California so it's a green
light, which means, when you see one you kill one. So they were trying to kill him. - It's pretty cool to
watch my dad run the show, just knowing that he's
been there, he's done it. He's seen this stuff before. Maybe I'll be up there,
some day, delegating, doing investigations,
and stuff like that. - [CO] Face the wall. [beep] - First month, and I've
already seen stabbings, and I didn't expect to see
it all happen so quickly. - Exit! - Every time you
see someone you know get lifted on a stretcher, or
see them like severely hurt, it kind of just keeps
you realizing that this environment is not
a safe place to work. - [Radio] If I have 15
it's in his best interest to go ahead and turn
around and cuff up. - We have an inmate refusing
to come out of his cell, and so I have to go up there and get dressed and suit it out. When an inmate refuses to move or refuses directives
obviously from security staff you do procedures and
precautions and move them out. - Okay. - At cell extraction,
I mean, we do our best to talk an individual out. Hey, this is option A, you come
out you're still in prison, option B, you're
gonna get gassed, but you're still
gonna be in prison. It's a high risk situation, and a cell extraction can go
extremely wrong real quick depending on how well
your staff is trained. - A lot of the CO's
on the extraction team had at least three
or plus years on me. Are we going to 3 B? That in a sense is kind
of dangerous because not having a lot of
experience doing that could get someone hurt. During my first cell
extraction, I was a shield guy. - Give me your arm! - I hit the inmate
with the shield, the shield shattered and
it cut my forearm open. But the most important
thing to me was making sure that
all the officers got out of that cell
extraction safe. - Line up right here, man. - Alright, check your
shields and your mask please. Make sure everything's sealed. - The inmate that we'll
be extracting today is Alfredo Aragones. The reason for the extraction
is the inmate Aragones is refusing to be restrained. - Put our gas mask on. - [Inmate] Yeah! One more time, come to your
food port or be restrained. Chemical agents will
be deployed right now. One more time, come to your
food port or be restrained. Chemical agents will
be deployed right now. I'm gonna tell you one more time either come to your food
port and be restrained or chemical agents will
be deployed if you stay. - Turn in this way. Turn this way. - Having the extraction
team present for any inmate I think, it makes them
want to comply right away ¢cause no matter what
their gonna lose. There's five or six men
on that extraction team and that inmate is
outnumbered greatly. And then not only that, your
suited up in all your gear, you know we have chemical
agents that we have to use. When you get pepper
sprayed, in my opinion, it's one of the worst feelings. Ohh. - Open it up. Fight through it. Fight through it. - Come on, Bell! - Hey! - Feels like a hot
iron is on your face, and then it stays like
that for 30 minutes. So that's why it
still surprises me whenever an inmate
does have to go all the way through
an extraction, that he's able to handle that. It's nasty stuff. - Go ahead and
stay on your knees until we tell you to stand up. - A lot of people think
you know, being a CO you treat them like
animals, that's not true. If we have to use force we
do, but we don't like to. Most of the guys here they don't want to get
hit with that shield, they don't want to get
thrown on the ground, they just want to be able
to walk out in handcuffs and that's what we want here. Close the door. When you have an extraction you have the inmate
open up their mouth, go through their hairs. You gotta look in there ears, every part of
their body to where they could possibly have
some type of contraband. (coughs) (ominous electronic music) (inmates laughing) - Really? Working the level two
can get pretty routine. You guys are always complaining
that it's too cold in here. The level two inmates they are kind of kids
who didn't grow up, so you're kind of
like a babysitter. Because it doesn't
need to be on, its hot, or its cold in here. In the academy they
train you for the worst, like fights and stuff, but it's kind of the
same stuff everyday. Just little things. (inmate laughs) Talk to maintenance about that. That's not my job. Coming from a
fighting background, wrestling, jujitsu
all that stuff, I want to do more than
just getting stuck at boring posts all day. I want to be a first responder, I want to be like
the first person to be there when I'm needed. But I'm not getting the
chance to prove myself. When was the last
time you made a bust? - It's been a while. - Who are we going to hit today? You hit that one? - Young rookie
correctional officers, they're itching to
want to do something. They have this idealization
that its prison and every day is war. Well it's not that way. We train for the worst
and pray for the best. At the end of the
day you never want to have to pull one of your
brothers or sisters out of a pod that has been brutally
beat or stabbed. - Yeah. I joined this profession
because of the action. I actually do think
about my next move. I just feel like it
would be better for me to grow as a person
and as an officer. I get out of that post
as quick as possible. (yawns) (ominous electronic music) - It's pretty nerve racking
knowing that I'm outnumbered, but that's when the training
kicks in and you're like okay, there is a red flag there. There is something going on. And I know that I
have to count on my fellow officers
to help me out. LT. Malina? - [Radio] Go ahead. - Even with the
Sergeant coming here I still need to
watch out for them. He can be pretty
sneaky sometimes. He probably already
knows, I'm watching him. The thing about them is, whenever they stare
at you for so long it means they're doing something and they're just trying to see if you're gonna
catch them or not. - We're constantly being
studied by inmates. They'll sit there and watch
you, they'll observe you, down to your mannerism. - At anytime, anybody can throw
contraband over the fence. And these guys are crafty. They figure out a
weakness in our system. If the officer isn't sharp
on picking up on things, then they're gonna
use that weakness to communicate
amongst each other. - Yeah. - Things will go south quickly. - [Radio] Jim, call. - Yeah. - [Inmate] That's how they're
doing this over there too? - Yeah. - Yup! - Alright. - These guys are in
a restricted area and they are cutting the weeds. If contraband is in that area and they see a friend of theirs giving signals to toss it over. They could easily do that. So Javier Cazares needs to
be aware of his surroundings and watch his
inmates at all times. - Hey, where's that bag at? - The Sergeant came
over and told me to make sure that they don't talk to other inmates
through the fence because that's where they pass whatever they get from
here on this side. - [Inmate] Where's Trigger at? - Hey, don't be talking to
these guys through the fence. It's a lot hitting me at once. They know how to
do their business. I think I'm being tested, I gotta watch out for that. - These inmates will
test you on a daily basis to see if you have what it
takes to come to work every day and deal with what
they have to give you. - Hey, you wanna
catch a write-up? - Huh? - You! Get away from the fence,
don't talk to these guys. Just don't have anybody
talk to you over the fence. They might have been like
"Let's see if this guy's "gonna say something
the second time", I was telling myself, whatever you do don't let
anybody step over you. Once they heard they lose
good time then they stop. - What happened? (laughs) - Hey, you guys, let's just finish this
up so we could move on. After today, I have a
little bit more confidence working with these inmates, but there is still
a lot to learn. Hey, get off of there, Watson! You'll get your rec
time in the afternoon. It's gonna be a tough job. I still need to work on myself and try to give myself the image that I want the inmates to see. I don't want people to
look at me and be like he's just part of
the regular people. I wanna become a better leader. Break time! Fortunately, there's still
a lot of time to grow. - Make sure you tug on it good. There you go. - [EMS] Ready? - Yes. Hang on, move these. Face the wall, Rogers. Exit! - Hey. - [Chaz] What's up? - How's it going - Good, good. - Is it okay to be
late to response? Sometimes it happens. When the assistance call comes, drop what you're
doing, get there. - Okay. - What happened? - I'm just trying to figure
out what M building is, E building and stuff. That's pretty rough. - Okay. What do you think
about the fight? Are you nervous? - Yeah. When you're working in a prison, you're not safe. - You know how I taught
you, when you go to a fight, make sure you check the hands. - Yeah. - It looked like he
was just being punched. Come to find out he had a
little shank in his hand, he was puncturing him, yeah, stabbed him pretty good. Tried pulling it up on
camera, we couldn't see it. - Oh, really? - Yeah. I'm glad he works
here with me you know, but yeah, it's
dangerous, it can be. You know, and always in
the back of your head, you're always
thinking, is he okay? Every day's a learning
experience and he's And I think he's gonna
be a great officer. They giving you a problem? - No. As far as my dad goes, his work ethic and the
way he carries himself, yeah, that's exactly
how I want to be. I do wanna make him proud. - Cool man, if you need
anything, let me know. Alright. Be careful. - Alright. - Major. For the dog program, do
I go to the threes first? - I think they are waiting
for you over in the fives. - In the fives already? Okay. Thank you, sir. That sucks. My post is two relief so they kind of put me
wherever they need me. - Yeah. - Alright. - Today, I'm working
the dog program. So umm... My job today is to
escort and supervise the lead inmate dog trainer. He's gonna be teaching other
inmates how to train the dogs so they can be adopted
one day by civilians. So it's just a little
frustrating because I like action. I'm an adrenaline junkie. - [Lilly] I can't go. - Yeah, you can. Now you're caught up, let's go. I got Lilly to tag along
so I won't be too bored. Lilly's a really cool girl. She's a great officer. - So he is working
to be a service dog? - Yeah. - That's cool. - No. - Actually, hey, why
don't you run it? - And I'll just see
how you're running it. - It's a cool program. It helps the dogs
if they are trained and obedient to find a home. And for the inmate it teaches
them how to be patient. It's pretty nice. - I feel like I'm
just getting stuck at crappy posts all day. If I don't get a post
where there is action. It could maybe be time
to try something new. Alright, Sarge. Thank you for the
learning opportunity. - Yeah. You gonna head back? - Yeah. Thank you, sir. - Lilly. - Thank you. - Compound Sargent. I'm just going to find
out what's going on. Gate! Compound Sergeant. I was checking in on
my Compound Sergeant to see if we could
cross the compound, and he said, "10-3", so that's
usually not a good thing. So, I'm trying to find
out what's going on. It's a prison, there's
always stuff going on, but I haven't got a
chance to prove myself. Hopefully, I can get
involved whatever is going on and people can see what I'm
capable of handling here. You have to be out here. Why'd they call 10-3? - Is there like a
fight or something? - Get ready to start running. - Oh, I want to go. Let's go. - [Officer] Let's go, yeah. - Look they called
the extraction team. - I've never seen that
in person, just on TV. I want to be on the
extraction team. - [Lilly] That would be cool. - I do kind of get
a little frustrated just because I like action. So that's just in my nature. I like to move and I like to be the one
setting people straight. This isn't what I signed
up for when I came in. I'm just literally
sitting there watching. I'm not sure how long I actually want to work this job
before I try to move. - If an officer just decides
he's become complacent and he's just become
bored with the job. Sometimes it's good to move
to a different facility that can bring a fresh breath
of air to somebody's career. - This is the moment of truth. Can you cut it for
just one second? I've been thinking a lot lately and I think I kind of
want to transfer to PNM. Yeah. I joined this profession
because of the action but here at Southern, day
to day is usually routine. I just want something more. This is something
that I truly want. Thank you. You're the best. So I heard PNM was a pretty
dangerous facility to work at. They just house a
lot more unstable, a little bit more
dangerous inmates. And since they come
out during tier time it makes the job a little
bit more dangerous. So if I were to
transfer I feel like it would be a true
test of myself as an officer and as a person. (ominous electronic music) - Hey! (coughs) - Hey, quit resisting! - As we went to put
him in the strip cage, he put something in his mouth
and tried to swallow it. We don't know what it was, so right away an
officer sprayed him, ¢cause we don't know what it
is, if it's a weapon or what. - Breath deep, come up. Stand up. - [Mangin] Every inmate
that has an incident, you have to take
them to evaluated to make sure they're
cleared by medical, they don't have to
go to the hospital or something like that. - What did you swallow, man? What did you swallow? - [Mangin] Whatever
inmate Aragones swallowed, it could potentially
make him OD. What did you swallow? - [Mangin] It's very key to
find out what he swallowed because we have to
make sure his safety and his well-being
is taken care of. - Inmate Aragones said that
he spit out whatever he had, but we haven't recovered it, so I can't believe him until
the investigation is over with. - Aragones, when you
get back to your cell you're gonna get on your knees, and you're gonna
lay on the floor and the officers are gonna
take your leg restraints off. You stay laying on the
floor until you're directed to get back on your
knees, alright? - Get behind him. - It's hard to work with
inmates like that but, you just gotta treat
them like humans ¢cause I'm sure he's
nervous as well. You don't know what he
endured being in that cell. Yeah, he probably
deserved it but who knows what experiences
he's had with CO's. - We prepare these
young men and women to be capable of visiting
violence at the drop of a hat. But at the same time we ask
these young men and women to also invest themselves into people the
rest of the world has the luxury of throwing away. - Put your hands in the
food port and stand up. - I'm gonna remember
what he did. It's not my job to judge him, and that's how you
have to think of it. - Good job, guys! Good job! - Now he complied,
he's in a cell and just another day
at the level six. - Right now our
correctional facilities are dealing with
more verbal assaults, [beep] physical assaults. - Let's get the [beep]... - Than we have in
the past years. Whether it's gang violence or just more violent
offenders in prison. - You [beep]. - Our correctional
officers are being tested more and more every day
when they come to work. [Inmate yelling] - The worst part about this
job is the unpredictable stuff. - Hey, [beep], what's up? - Working in those pods and
working with these inmates, you should come to
work nervous everyday. - Coming up! - When you're nervous, your head's right and
you're ready to go. You come in relaxed and "oh, whatever it's
just another day", that's a day, you know,
potentially someone could get
hurt. - I haven't got put
into a situation where somebody's life
is on the line yet, but I want to be
known as the guy who when people were in
trouble with something, they knew they could rely on me to protect them or get
them out of a situation. - For this job you
really do need to be both mentally and
physically strong. So far it's been
pretty hard for me. These inmates are going to
try to get under your skin. But I mean at the
end of the day, I'm just trying to make it home. - Since no one's
heard from Ariel, none of the production
team, nobody at PNM, we decided we'd go
to her apartment and just see how she's feeling. We're all really
worried about her. (knock on door) (knocking) Nobody here. - It's always disappointing
to lose a good officer. Ariel Montoya was a good
correctional officer. She impressed me. I think she came, she proved her point
and she did her job. When people have to choose, do
I want to do this every day, it takes a very few
choice men and women to be able to do this
for 20 plus years. Ariel decided to
move on with life and I'm sure she'll
be professional in any type of
endeavor she chooses. And I wish her
nothing but the best. - Here at PNM, 16 of us came and there's only
five of us left. Whatever the reason
was for Ariel leaving, she's, you know, our sister, I wish her the best. It was sad to see her go. - [Man] Hey! - For over three decades, organized prison gangs
have wreaked havoc in our prison system. - The prison gangs
like the Syndicatos, they'll never stop it. - [Purto] I'm looking
for any kind of Intel. - I am concerned
with my performance. - They advised me that I was
gonna do my first extraction. The moment that I put on that
gas mask, it was like, whoa. - It's time to get serious now. - My mind's going a
hundred miles an hour, I'm thinking, what if
he might try to escape. Oh my goodness. - These SNM gang members, they've been working
out which usually is a sign that they're
preparing for something. - That was your 2nd directive. If you do it again
we'll shoot your ass. [beep] - I told you once, I will not tell you again. [beep]
