Documentary Maker Reveals What's Inside The World's Toughest Prisons | This Morning

[Music] in 1990 Raphael Rowe was wrongly convicted of murder and sentence to life in prison while Raphael always maintained his innocence and 12 years later his conviction was overturned and he was released but that wasn't his final experience Behind Bars he now travels the globe experiencing some of the darkest places for the hit Netflix series inside the world's toughest prisons Raphael joins us now so you are wrongly convicted you spent 12 years in prison protesting your innocence you saying your words you refuse the prison regime so you were badly beaten you have the scars to show it why would you want to go back it's a good question why would you want to go back because what I witness what I experience nobody saw nobody witnessed or saw what I experienced so I wanted to take people into a world this Secret World of prisons and show them what life is really like in prison so it's not about sensationalizing violence or drugs that's evident in prisons we know that because we see it in programs on the news all the time we read it in newspapers but what does it actually mean and it's part this for you as well to kind of open up a broader conversation about Rehabilitation and if this prison system that we have Works absolutely is a balance isn't it when you send somebody to prison you want that individual to be released a rehabilitated person or at least a person that's not going to go on to commit another crime and therefore another victim so finding out how some systems around the world different cultures balance security containing somebody who's committed a horrendous crime like murder and Rehabilitation making sure that person comes out and doesn't commit another crime another victim these are prisons all over many of the prisons you've gone to when you look at the list so you watch the series obviously you think what why on Earth would any foreign government want you or allow you to go in and expose their system they don't see it as exposing their system they see it as opening the challenges that they face you know ensure we we see stories of prisoners coming out and committing further crimes and they want to show people the challenges of trying to keep drugs out of prison treating people humanely when they don't have the resources to provide meaningful activities in one of these episodes they have Bingo now some people might say bingo in a prison men and women in prison interact in but it's about the humanity and if you can get into the mindset of the prisoners it can change their behavior and so that's one of the keys why they let me in you know they want to show people how difficult the challenges of rehabilitating people I mean you're not just reporting on it you are living it I mean you are there for the week you have a strip search before you go in you are bunking in with an inmate some of them incredibly dangerous um do you not you're not fearful I mean I know it's something you've experienced before but still only I'm frightened every time I go in every time I enter a prison I step off the prison van I go through this experience of being stripped so she takes me back to the reality of what I experienced for 12 years because it happened to me but it's important because I think I try to do it in a grown-up way in a sensible way like I say that's not sensationalizing this deep degradation of being strip naked and I'm doing it on camera and it's not for show it's to show that you are stripped of your identity from the moment you walk through the prison gate and you become a number you become a murderer or a rapist or a thief whatever it is they deem you to be and immerse in myself in their lives means I get more out of the prisoners and the prison staff and the people that work in the prisons they're more willing to open up to me even though they know there are cameras capturing our conversations they relax they trust me and they share insights that you don't otherwise get to hear or see not many of those inmates outside perhaps are the ones who've been briefed would know your story while you were there what what you were doing in Moldova you were sharing a cell with a man who killed two people I think in Bosnia you were sharing a cell with a man who was a a Crime Boss and actually had killed so many people couldn't really remember now the reason I asked that is because you you said that you were scarred when you were in the prison system here physically scarred do those scars put you in further danger because they think oh here's a hard guy coming in I think there is a Persona I think a prisoner I mean you're in that very tight environment and you're dealing with some of the most manipulative dangerous conniving individuals they do pick up on your aura so if they don't know that I'd spent time in prison the questions that I'm asking these individuals give them an Insight that I know more than just being a journalist who comes in and just wants to knows about their lives so our conversation starts to reveal that I know more and then yeah the physical knowledge and the psychological questions does expose more so they they kind of get to understand in the same way I get to expose the store stories or open their stories more quickly otherwise and prisons vary I mean you talk about there was the prison in Cyprus and the guards there very different from anything you'd experienced anywhere I was quite welcoming it wasn't always like that they used to brutalize and beat the prisoners and then this Progressive director Anna came in and she done something that no one had ever done before she treated the prisoners regardless of their crimes with humanity and they responded by reducing the amount of offenses that they committed in the prison and then go out to become law abiding citizens so it really is about how they change that routine but Cyprus was a progressive place where they do think hard about humanity and Rehabilitation it's a place I've never been to before you're not into lots of prisoners you say and I've experienced lots of different cultures and the way that they do it Cyprus does it very differently I witnessed the wedding in there watching people play Bingo you know female prisoners interacting with male prisoners you know at one point I thought it was all a bit of a get up and it was a bit of a show but the reality is it was real on that subject of it being show when you have got a camera in there bearing in mind that many of these people who are behind bars have the gift of manipulation uh and that could be for many of them how they managed to get their victims to succumb because they were manipulated how can you be sure that the person you're talking to is not actually manipulating you and us watching because there's a camera in their face I think two things one I spend so much time with them I see through and get through the the BS you you know so I get past that point so the moments you see in the show obviously I spend days in their hours talking to these individuals get rid of the bravado the big I am stuff and get down to the nitty-gritty of who they were before they committed the crime such as murder and go in prison and the 15 or 20 years that they've been in prison the person they are today so I don't go in there with any kind of judgment and that really does make a difference sometimes I'm talking to individuals who have never told their story before ever to anybody so I'd like to think my experience of being a former president and the amount of stuff I've done really does cut through that kind of manipulation of me yeah well stay safe you because I know you'll be doing more um inside the world's toughest prison series six is on Netflix um right now thank you absolutely fascinating thank you very much thank you very much

Channel: This Morning

Views: 37,358

Keywords: this morning, this morning itv, holly willoughby, phillip schofield, this morning funniest moments, this morning interviews, alison hammond, itv

Id: fDSiT6xAsqI

Length: 7min 39sec (459 seconds)

Published: Wed Sep 28 2022