Murder, Mayhem, and Meditation (Full Length)

physicist Valley State Prison it's essentially the end of the line the worst of California's criminal offenders get sent here this year they're on track to have over 700 assaults they're letting us inside to have a look because that's progress it used to be so much worse oh yeah that's quite the sign huh does this mean I don't touch anything yeah pretty means pretty much means if you touch the inner wiring you're gonna end up like the photo up there was lethal electrified fence or anybody tried to go across offenses gonna be electrocuted to death all right stay away from the fences yeah about six months ago we're running on solar power during the day now too so as long as the sun's out all right are you telling me this is a green electrified fence into a green prison so we we barbecue escapees but it's it's solar-powered so it's a totally environmental salinas valley state prisons progressive for more than just it's green fence despite being a level 4 maximum-security facility it's also leading the search for solutions in an era where America can no longer afford to keep 2 million people incarcerated my escort lieutenant Chamberlin led me to Charlie yard the highest-security yard at the prison these are the worst guys in the state in the state with the most prisoners in the country we're just going to walk right out onto the art that's what we do we do the first time I came over here at this facility I mean just look at it right now it's all concrete everywhere you going there's literally the hair on the back of your neck kind of stands I'm thinking what am i doing you know what kind of crimes are the guys on this yard in for you're gonna have guys that are here that are gonna be murderers robbers burglars well I got some rapist here when you are on these you know maximum security yards they are more prone to violence so you need to try to keep it as manageable as possible within the last couple of months we have had two shootings here we are yeah on this chart on this yard right there buddy now ball cords get two inmates that were stabbing another MA so that our car used to force criteria for deadly force the officer fired mini-14 like most maximum-security yards in California prison Charlie yard at Salinas Valley is controlled by race-based gangs here the gangs have been so violent that inmates on Charlie yard spent 14 straight years with their activities restricted which inmates sometimes call a lockdown are people grouped here by your affiliation yeah definitely when you come under these yards everybody it's I guess self-segregation with the gangs all the games off I'll break up into their own tables even those you know black inmates over here you got bloods Crips and kumys you know four or five you name it the blacks are usually kind of be in one area you know southern Hispanics and you got northern Spanish you may have the whites but recently Salinas Valley is fighting gang violence not with more force and more vaak towns but with the most alternative of alternative approaches something I never imagined witnessing in a maximum-security prison we're learning meditation skills and we're learning mindfulness skills and our program consists of meditation instruction talked about Buddhist Dharma buddhadharma and questions and answers so we'll start an end with one bill when I came in like I saw everybody meditating I saw you guys you know praying but I gotta admit it's it's pretty striking to see it when you have to wear the cuffs if anything will help to practice because it's uh everyone else too you know more awareness of you know our present condition since Salinas Valley began implementing rehab programs like these a couple of years back Charlie yard has come off of its restricted status that's an important lesson at a time when America is trying to downsize its prison populations driven by politicians eager to show that they were tough on crime the number of prison inmates in the u.s. quadrupled between 1980 and 2009 America with 5% of the world's population had 20% of the world's prisoners for 30 years the idea for stopping crime has been effectively to just lock everybody up in places like this but we've kind of reached the sustainable limits of that system we can't afford to keep building prisons and incarcerating more people in fact California prisons had become so overcrowded that in 2011 the US Supreme Court ruled that they were in violation of the eighth amendments ban on cruel and unusual punishment and issued mandatory reductions that meant that the criminals in places like this could be coming to streets like yours so in a few maverick institutions around the country they're trying a new approach which is actually a really old approach it's called rehabilitation rehab programs were brought to Salinas Valley State Prison a couple of years ago by its new warden Randy Grounds a former offensive lineman for UCLA who looks kind of like the warden in an action movie except way more intimidating right now which you'll have is new youngsters coming in that have a date and the the pyramid if you will the intimidation of the gang will have them doing work and they end up catching more crimes more more charges and end up extending the date out or and becoming a lifer we got to do something that gets cultures to an SDGs to to head in a different direction so what I'm trying to do is just encourage people getting out on the yard first getting more program then bringing us mass first that can be mitigators or you know people that will help people get together and talk you know you don't have to fill the space there's a chance for if nothing else for life to be here better and provide some more opportunities for people that want to do other things and maybe be at that point in their their incarceration that they're looking at a lifer gate there's that political pendulum swung and it's hard to paint that picture for people on level four but just FYI the second lot for did get his day happened happened a couple of days it happened yesterday to now yeah ii live for a got a date Wow second in the history of this 18 year old so it's a it's a change he's been away locked up for when he's young and dumb and feeling cocky but not stopping because it's tired of feeling lost in the faces of his family white it's finally cotton hits the problem all this kumbaya was making me feel warm and fuzzy I almost forgot that I was hanging out with nine hundred murderers one if and then the hit the fan then stay - at the prison just got here and there is already stabbing this morning I think it was on B yard we don't know what gangs are involved or anything but we know the guys in bad shape we came to Salinas Valley State Prison to look at an improbable experiment in rehabilitation but the reality of rehab at a maximum-security prison is that there's a power opposed to it the prison gates who have gotten used to running things after 30 years of mass incarceration apparently what went on this morning was what they call a removal they're trying to get a guy out of the gang so two inmates jump stabbed shanked another inmate and it's serious enough that they had to call in the helicopter till I fly them out of here to a trauma facility even though violence is down there's still 700 violent incidents a year at this prison and this morning was one of them the guy who got assaulted is right there in the ambience now it's headed out to the flightline the aviation paramedics the air medics are supposed to be some of the best in the business and handling gunshots stab wounds it's exactly what we have today by the time we follow warden grounds back into the prison the investigation into the morning stabbing is already underway starting with the recovered weapons this is from today what is that the new manufactured weapons so what's in it so the top and they're trying to put it between those vertebrae right there it's a killer plastic how many weapons were so they made these obviously then they stash them on the yard yeah these stashed in a lot of ways don't go into that what he said is that a spoon what is it uh it just looks like a steel rod that they want to cut in half and fashioned it uh-huh you know sharp it to a point at one end and actually been on the one side see it bent right there nice cloth handle didn't get me yeah that'll do a lot of damage that's what we used today yeah today here's a good example of some weapons that we've found we've had a few deaths few murders in our history and we'd have a lot more if it wasn't for the good coordinated effort between custody and medical we'd have a lot more Gus yeah we saw that today so everybody kind of played their role as our few so how many I mean we saw they recovered three today how many weapons are they are they recovering sometimes we'll find 25 in a shot you know a big you know if somebody gives us some information we'll find a hiding place we were pretty thorough we do grid searches with our metal detectors but yeah as you can see some of these are plastic like the one you were just looking at bone-crushing weapons and they make them very creative they make them from all kinds of material this could come off of like a cart that we move food in maybe it's an inside seam or something or maybe it's a sheet metal from a pan so they actually point us out just so the guys were fighting right here oh this is his blood right here you can see where all the grenades fell low level fours in general have a lot of violence you know there's there you know there's a lot of prison politics going on if that's what you want to call it you know they're yummy they are they are their own destiny you know they're the ones making the choices so it was no different than yesterday you know we deal with all the games here you know from prison games to the street gangs we tend to focus on the prison gang so we refer to them as STG ones now or security to our group ones and then the street gangs are security threatened toons so when I walk out into the yard you know I see all the different ethnic groups hanging out at their different tables am I actually looking at gang structure yeah they broke up the sir Daniels will control the area of the yard table biases of Mexican nationals of control know the North Daniels control table the different black gangs they don't intermingle but if there's enough tables on the yard in areas then they'll split it up divide it up as well and what are what are the most prominent gangs like at our institution here to be this sue Daniels and the prison gang the SDG one that there's some Serbian two will be the Mexican Mafia what we would have here is their associates individuals that have run the yard on their behalf collect taxes when drugs are brought on to the facility they tax a drug dealer a third sell it on the facility and then they send out money to the Mets come on numbers yeah I think that's something that's hard for somebody who doesn't come to prison every day to understand that a lot of it is about drugs and money even inside the prison yeah that's the driving force you know that they talk about a cause you don't love a stock letter cause with that causes so we have that standing on B yard yesterday how much of that kind of violence is related to the drugs or the gangs quite a few of it is a lot a lot of times for different different reasons you can have any individual who owes money individuals that run the facilities if they don't get the money towards gotta go sometimes they get a target for assault by the the prison gain leadership and meaning if you're not paying your tax up to the Mexican Mafia you're gonna you're gonna pay your your tax in blood it's like its own government yeah yes in the system they have leadership on the facility like the Sioux Daniels they'll have what they call a Meza this is a governing body is her very nose a control that yard on behalf of the Mets you know not to be too dramatic or whatever but a lot of people won't even say the words Mexican Mafia it's like Keyser söze you're not even supposed to say their damn name and yeah it's they're scary right yeah I'm they control the prisoners if they're out on a mainline facility you know it's taken right out a note right out of the letter make a phone call a visit and get somebody killed so yeah there's a legitimate director for speaking their name I'm a white boy from Santa Cruz 45 minutes away like what do I do when I show up my first day in prison they'll do what you're saying you mean the gang leadership will ask to see my paperwork when I show up the first day okay they'll ask to see your that 120g connelly access to your legal paperwork to ensure that you didn't inform on your case you weren't an informant from law enforcement if you are and you can prove that then they may talk to personal so but that like first day I walk out onto the yard like where do I sit well if you're a white guy from from Santa Cruz right yeah the white leadership in the building is gonna get with you they're gonna clear your paperwork and then they're going to you'll you'll see that the table or the area that the whites control in the yard is way more formalized than I ever imagined that's crazy yeah I mean the notes will come in these ones here these are the notes and what are some of these things sand and you found these are all notes that you found the correct we call them tights right tights notes there's some different references oh I think they're just in plastic to preserve them we're in biohazard no they aren't plastic because they were security saying somebody's rectum yes so just as I was about to touch it just at the naked time what you got dirt it's a hit miss so it's just a list of individuals target for assault by the year oh right here all these names like this oh yeah they'll refer to it as a bad news nice being or ngo no goodness I had no idea that the system that the gangs use is so formal and so official so it's like if you're sentenced to jail and you come to a level 3 or level 4 facility there's almost two systems of control you're under the control of the correctional officers but you're also under the control of the gangs that bears repeating Sergeant Valdez just told me that gangs control Vietnamese a reality corroborated by Donnie a former gang leader who reported to the Aryan Brotherhood a prison gang allegedly responsible for 20 percent of the murders in the federal prison system the shot car comes up and maybe somebody trust wreck your paperwork that's what they do yeah you want to make sure even though they know why you're there they want to make sure they got somebody who's one way that officers try to break the power of the gangs is by trying to cut off their money supply and seizing the contraband that they sell to other inmates and one way they do this is with a highly trained canine unit we're about to mean that a k-9 unit inmates on the canine is going to search some of the cells right now see if they pick up in contraband there's nothing here that's gonna hurt the dog yeah it made so I have hot pots and stuff turn-ons let's go hot water on my song Brett dogs going through right now jumping up on the racks it's all the way up on the top rack it's kind of sniffing the mattress basically everything kind of cover in most of the corners of the south it's pretty calm right now so doesn't look like he's hit on anything so I see that - what a minute right yeah so yeah like I said five dogs we could go through this whole building and it's great we didn't find anything today but uh sure doesn't mean it's not out there the cliche in the media is that america is the land of ever-increasing prison populations but what orange is the new black won't tell you is that five years ago America's prisons reached their maximum capacities and now inmate numbers are actually declining for better or worse felons are being released to the streets bringing prison culture with them so one of the most violent prisons in California has been trying to reform that culture with rehab programs but change is hard prisons this funny thing where it looks like nothing is happening I mean they call it timeless time for a reason but underneath the surface there's a lot happening there's a lot of racial politics there's a lot of tension or other games being played you've got nothing to do they're gonna come up with something to do and then just like the day that preceded it another incident this time a riot involving about 30 inmates at an adjacent facility although Salinas Valley State Prison violence is down 700 incidents per year still breaks down to about two per day still not sheriff Oh with northern Hispanics or Southern Hispanic gangs against whites and that equals a lot more work to be done there's everybody laying straight down and here's the vicious cycle of violence inmates join ethnic based gangs for protection in prison but then they have to do what the gangs order them to do including fight with inmates of other ethnic groups basically what I'm seeing is a snapshot ethnic demographic makeup of the housing units of the prison cells the correction officers tell me that it's grouped by mostly by gang affiliation right so you can see that's the only safe way to house people in cells together one of the old issues was everything that's race-based you're doing racial yeah it's easy for somebody on the streets is that they say hey you're racially segregated yeah no we're segregating by game because if you try to put two opposing gang members in the same cell they're gonna stab each other are going to stab each other I'm gonna try and talk to some of the inmates and I suspect what you'll see is that nobody wants to talk to me the gang politics are so strong that they can actually speak without permission so you see they'll be polite but nobody would be willing to engage that's bust it's hard to get inmates to talk on the general population yards because they know the gangs are watching but a yard at Salinas Valley is the SNY or the sensitive needs yard it's per inmates who are at risk in general population some of them because they dropped out of gangs which is what rehab programs want inmates to do the SNY yard at Salinas is also level for maximum security like the rest of the prison but here you can actually talk to some more interesting inmates like Trixie what I decided to leave the gang you know I decided to find myself this and this and that and as I seen psychologist psychiatrist psychologist you know that that's why I felt the wind so on top of your crime you have 15 years you have 15 years for being part of the game yeah and my crime had been to to my crime had nothing to do with some with howdy college they're benefiting the gang for us I just want to know like how important the gangs are in prison in prison the gangs are your life you know and I mean when I was an active game you know my homies meant everything to me they got to a point where it's kind of sad but it's true my problems were born horned in my family when you come in the officers when you're stripped down and you get dressed it should be an image to do your time so do you come from sir I can find number of your gang from East Los Angeles you're a southern Hispanic you go over there so they label you at the top so when you get into to the prison yard everyone already knows what's a block - yeah and then once you're here and you I mean you're in it for a long time right you're in the six years here a shot-caller all that stuff and yurts he did I ever put a lot of people in this yard then why would you say like go sticks on what would they have done that would make you call a hit on them snitch work with staff work what's that trail to our waste you know that's the ultimate sin is to betrayed your own homes and how to call it and fail to put in work when asked what do you mean by put in what an example you are you earn your respect by putting in work but he they were hurting it you know really taking their window even though term was with a knife we have a knife pistol use it do you feel bad about the people you ordered hit song um no because they deserve it's the way it works you know so I just came over from Delta Y R and the GP yard nobody would talk to me did not supposed to if they talk to you they'll they're contributing to their exposing like the questions you ask them they would be like a debriefing question yeah you know so they they will get they'll definitely they can't even talk to officers so what would happen if those guys talk to me yeah if there's nobody in the yard to get away with they can get 15 so you could have been out oh yeah Salinas Valley State Prison is comprised of several units there's the general population yards where the majority of inmates are housed but there's also another unit and this is where the prison suspected gang leaders and most violent inmates are harbored all the inmates are housed in here or in here for various reasons could be disciplinary in nature maybe they caused a bit of battery on another inmate on the yard murdered another inmate drug distribution in the quarter century in which America's prison population quadrupled the emphasis was on keeping criminals off the street not rehabilitating them in prison there was tremendous gang-related violence and the perpetrators of that violence often ended up in places like this add sake unit known commonly as the halt a prison within the prison administrator segregation unit such as this or anywhere else in the state of California you're mandated to wear he stabbed this underneath you know my shirt another lieutenant we always wear it's down best at all times officer lamellae he's gonna shoot us some best so we can walk down to those tears I'm assuming this is called a stab vest because it's supposed to prevent me from getting stabbed yeah we're ready to go let's do this right okay so we're going here listen up go to post to the door okay for Cody case yep yeah yeah guessing by the way it means they throw on you all right good how long you guys been been down here no no in AD seg since January how about you man you've been an ad seg for a year crazy how long you been down there how many you got you got a determinant sense yeah seventeen tell so they get this a couple hours ten hours a week and hours when we come out in here come in here down flow the guy will be cuffed out close the port close the door and we'll open up the port remove the cuffs and you come out here for a couple hours exercise for ten hours ten hours per week yes I do a lot of burpees a lot of squats a lot of push-ups you know they don't cuz they don't call it a prison workout for nothing or peace is a real popular workout yeah I bet it is yeah one of the most popular ones we see on the yards guys I'll jump down and mildewed the stomach kids oh yeah a stomach trying to tighten a kind of the ABS to reduce the violence that lands people in places like ad seg when warden Randy grounds walks around asking maximum security inmates to talk about their feelings it's a huge shift in mindset I'd like to share a little bit about counseling what it means to you what you've learned or butcher experiences mental life I think ops was pretty great for shows people adult they can open up really can change so many of us go under the same impression that they're gonna be that hard individual that we're not allowed to feeling it Venus and why we're allowed to see that hey yeah we can change and there is an alternative wave instead of violence Perry gives his chance to open up to one another to share each other's shoulder in a story that normally that we want to do and in the other yard being over here we're allowed to interact with all the groups that's why on the yard you normally see whites blacks Mexicans Indians everyone program it together go through the show and we sit down hey all our stories are different places was still the same story personal with somebody who can sound a level-4 make you were either weak or warding grounds has rehab programs at Salinas Valley even though half the inmates are serving life sentences and won't have a chance at parole until they do at least a quarter of a century behind bars but a chance creates hope and hope reduces violence and welcome back to beautiful smooth hi maximum security prison over look at the beautiful Salinas Valley Salinas Valley you know if it wasn't for the guard towers the electric fence the concertina wires and the prison it would be so bad oh and the several hundred inmates serving 25 years to life forgot about that yeah just overlook the murderer right you know robbers last thing I wanted was one of these guys that are being released is a graduate to that next level of crime commit murder on a family member of mine or a friend of mine and everybody needs to have that mindset in this entire country not just California it's this entire country inmates are being released and if we're not giving them something then shame on us we have to do something and by offering programs we're taking steps there are slow steps but you gotta you gotta crawl before you walk you know so that's what we're doing here are you doing good good to see you too I think that that's probably one of the things that we struggle with most as men is how to take the high road in a situation of disrespect and that personal accountability that personal responsibility that you're talking about it has ramifications like that pond and the that pebble in that pond that that you won't see but I tell you the they're there and it affects affects the yard affects the other image it affects the staff you're really holding the key to that you're making those decisions and I just appreciate that as men yeah I was hoping somebody can maybe tell me what this group is all about you know it allows us to develop an understanding all the resources that are available outside the prison for possibly parole put all this behind so just forgive my ignorance but life for me and say you have a life sentence yeah 38 years are there other people who are up for parole you aren't you yeah my fellow veteran over here okay I'm going to July after 21 years 21 years Wow Wow and do you do you have any way to assess like what the odds are of making parole my arts now since I have all these groups and I'm learning about inside victims awareness they have to be in the sympathy for the victims cause detrimental arm too you know Oh probably a good chance let's say 70/30 I mean a lot of you guys have been down a long time do you ever think like holy like now I might actually get out and like the world's changed a lot and I got to figure out how I'm gonna fit in this new world if I get out so everybody in here is a lifer everybody in here is the life sentence the only way we're making out is through the parole board a lot of guys in here are ex-gang members a lot of guys in here are ex drug addicts alcoholics and so making the change all these groups they talked about the group's earlier a lot of us here have been down like you said 20 years 25 years some of these guys in here been down 30 years 40 years we're learning from each other has anybody from this group been paroled yeah yeah I got granted parole he did you have a date I'm waiting on that right now I got granted parole in December the governor approved my parole in March and I signed my parole papers I'm just waiting for a date now so hopefully within the next couple of months yeah after 25 years Wow so you used for your first decade in prison I do a lot for my first day why these guys all happen right what did they know that I don't know well you know the fact that I'm still hearing a little for prison after 15 years a clean time tell us a lot of these guys I got into a lot of trouble when I first got locked up who's eligible for parole in the next couple years how did you get from like a regular yard a mainline yard to an S my yard I had to drop out and be brief PD raped so you're in the gangs yeah and then you debriefed yeah what's that mean you give up gotta give up to gang life you got to give us a way of lucky you were living on the mainline as far as hurting people you know fighting on people you know yeah okay we're in I was asking it on the night and now you're growing it long is that now you're the offset okay you just wanted your hair back was that the whole thing no pretty much so you you got a you change out to go to work just have the idea yeah security how many fights you've been in allow a boss I don't know 25 30 I've probably been in about four or five night fights my hand cut right here I've had my ear cut I've had my hand staff but you're all right I'm all right I don't made a good Navy SEAL I never been stabbed in horshack yeah yeah yeah sir or lucky so you you ordered guys to get hit yeah cuz you're a shot caller yeah I was on on a couple rings of the ladder yeah thirsty I wasn't real high I mean I knew a lot of people but I was a quick learner I mean of the politics and that's probably what saved me from either getting butchered her killed first it was a hard life I'm prepared to feel here glad to be I that Maris so this is a successor Donnie's the success story that's that's the whole point is to get a guy like that from being a shot-caller in the main yards to coming over having a heart change as the word describes it and with a little hope of maybe getting out one day America is sitting at a crossroads after 30 years of trying to make us safe from crime by locking up every offender for long sentences now we're letting them out this maximum-security prison says you better offer these felons something before they go so basically when you're just doing that you're not offering anything what are you doing you're warehousing are you just keeping them in here to keep them out of society until the courts say they're able to be released and then we let them out and they got the same mentality so you mindset because when they came in probably even a little bit better criminal you know right right because your product is like a diversity of criminal activity you know so they're gonna like come in here and improve their skills once we get in something else to focus on yeah we have an inmate that's actually rolling out tomorrow meaning he's getting out he's been down he's been incarcerated since 1999 and tomorrow be his first day of freedom and so I just agreed to talk to us on camera I just want to see what it's like the night before freedom Dajuan was convicted of mayhem which is the act of permanently disfiguring or disabling another person something Congrats bro you must be pretty happy and you've been since 99 right okay so you're talking 15 years right that's a long time when you get out I failed 2012-2014 tomorrow in the morning I feel like that it was holding two different things I got just fill it all in you got to tell me what you bucket list like what do you got to do I got a bit a pulled-pork brother can cause doing it takes field study that's number one on a million that I got to meet my grandson yeah Wow and what are you nervous about you said you know it's just music okay just what could be a success won't happen to catch up you know here 38 got a lot that when I was 22 he fell you know so I got to play catch every other different things you got a plan for for tomorrow when you get out yeah just this grab bag get the little monsoon again and I got a final order [Music] how about work or job you got a plan for that too yeah yeah I better approach thing down I can't imagine I got knocked up now to pay the man and I don't see the pager in a while yeah Wallace told me that the Farley the worst part about being in here is privacy which you can guess but they said like you know if you got to take a you have a dude in front a roommate so they made this makeshift curtain but they kind of pull up [Music] that's the only privacy they got you see the bunks where they sleep I don't know this reminds me of something I'm like a Navy ship or something it ain't memory-foam mass incarceration is pretty many [Music] every time that gate opens every time kind of a little-known fact but actually prison populations have been declining for a bunch of reasons courts ordering it there's economic pressure but that means that more and more inmates are getting paroled and getting wet out on the streets even from a level 4 facility like this this is like the dumbwaiter for prison you like to throw your idea in there and he in there it's like an inmate elevator basically you throw your idea in there and then he can check that make sure we're legit with all the electronics buckets so hey you doing good man yeah sober up hey you doing there I bet you are how you feeling yeah how'd you sleep you didn't sleep at all not hey dude yeah who's in your cellie huh yeah how you doing yeah all right you know just another day at work you know for me yeah yeah I was asking him about it yesterday I was asking if people are like are you stoked when somebody else gets out yeah yeah yeah yeah when's your day good morning how are you are you rolling and you wrecked it out he said he's been ready to go for 15 years is that what he said yeah [Music] last time you're doing this walk a lot of people yelling people seem to be pretty pretty excited this morning asked him you know how he slept he said not at all yeah 15 years always seen is this yard right here that's the most outside he's seen it's kind of wild so on what are you thinking as you're leaving this yard right now ravit relief I can't wait to walk through these gates at the end of the day after we're done filming I can't even imagine what it's like to walk through for the first time after 15 years [Music] Richard for you okay we had $39 and with 65 cents on the books okay push your 200 that this state allows you for total of 230 961 which you will get when my partner takes you out there and you a part of our family I need a signature there the date there today we take you out there you on your own so you just never give up your family said you send those to take their dress outreach their family sense to them or they can buy the state clothes which is it like a beige color khaki type of pant a t-shirt and state shoes you better make it work okay what was the last time you wore a regular clothes oh well maybe it's because you got all swole up in prison read this big when you went in no now I've moved this monster firm lifted yeah you're so you're so excited warm when I wake up right and I had a good meal right now you know yeah well you're still in this thing you know to the Sallyport look dawn is about five minutes being a free man and from 15 years in an 8 by 12 foot cell to the streets to lawns world is about to expand exponentially for 3 decades we fought crime by building huge prisons and filling them up now for a lot of reasons including economic prison populations are declining and the emphasis is no longer on how many people we can lock up but on what they've become when they walk out the gate [Music] [Music] are you doing okay okay yeah yeah this is your son right yeah that's my boy right dude yeah and you just had a baby too right congratulations that's my dad like a great granddad yeah so what's what's the plan now Dwan thank you so much man congratulations really bye you guys this prisons fledgling but still radical experiment in rehabilitation is unproven what is known is that we're on the edge of a sea change in incarceration the old system is ending but the new one depends on taking some of the nation's most violent guys and hoping they walk a straight path [Music]

Channel: VICE News

Views: 7,192,333

Rating: 4.6261673 out of 5

Keywords: murder mayhem and meditation, murder mayhem vice, murder mayhem meditation, Vice prison doc, vice prison, Salinas Valley State Prison, valley state prison, murder, VICE News, Aryan Brotherhood, prison, VICE, incarceration, gangs, jail, drugs, drug policy, maximum security, Mexican Mafia, rehabilitation, documentary, world news, breaking news, documentaries, vice guide, vice videos, Prison system, mexican mafia, Mexican mafia us jail, prison stories

Id: RzOkf-mrDbM

Length: 48min 58sec (2938 seconds)

Published: Sat Jul 05 2014

Reddit Comments

[u/JimminyBobbit]

While a very interesting documentary, I don't really feel we learnt much about the rehabilitation efforts that prison is making, despite the interviewer mentioning it several times. Also the meditation aspect is not really even discussed, despite it being in the title.

[u/circumvrent_the_law]

Detective Rust Cohle at 33:05.

[u/[deleted]]

I really liked that.

[u/babydill]

If you liked that check out the Locked Up in America series by Frontline.

[u/[deleted]]

700 isn't that bad, I thought it'd be higher given the population.

[u/FatManEats]

Federal CO here,

Prison always looks crazy from the outside but when you work in the environment for a job you really do see that prison is not that bad for both inmates and workers.

Rehab - Re-Entry = The system works it just depends on if the individual wants to actually better themselves.

Seeing the Warden shake inmates hands blew my mind as a CO, that would not go over well with the correctional staff.

[u/DharmaBum01]

http://www.hulu.com/watch/4186