"This programme contains very strong language." "I've been spending several weeks in Miami in one of the largest jails in America." "Unlike prisons, jails are for inmates who are pre-trial and technically innocent but the environment can be, if anything, even more brutal." "Why are you over here and they're over there?" "This here say, "Off limits."" "This is off limits." "This shit off limits." "Move it!" "Aye, sir!" "Aye, sir!" "Aye, sir!" "Aye, sir!" "Aye, sir!" "This week, I'd be meeting the handful of younger inmates given a chance to escape a prison sentence through boot camp." "Give me "Aye, sir."" "Aye, sir." "Aye, sir." "This is boot camp, boy." "This is boot camp." "How old are you?" "14, sir." "You're 14?" "What did you get convicted of?" "Armed robbery, sir." "I'd also be getting to know some of the men for whom it may already be too late." "How long could they give you?" "I'm facing the death penalty." "I was on the sixth floor of Main Jail, one of the most violent areas of the entire Miami jail system." "CHATTER" "You're just arriving here on the sixth floor?" "Yes." "For what reason?" "For what reason?" "An incident on another floor." "Which just happened?" "Yes." "Just now?" "Yes." "What was it?" "It was an act of violence." "Somebody got their eye fucked up." "Can you speculate on what might have been a reason for it happening?" "What might have been a reason?" "Cos we're all criminals, vicious animals." "Did you sustain any injuries?" "Probably to my hand, that's about it." "Where is the other gentlemen?" "I don't know." "He could be gone, he could be in medical." "Was he badly hurt?" "His eye was pretty fucked up." "It happened an hour ago." "It must have been kind of an emotional thing." "Are you still angry about it?" "I wasn't angry then." "I didn't do it." "But even if I would have done it, see, people don't get angry." "It's not a thing of anger, you just do what you do." "Maybe you didn't grow up fighting." "Fighting's nothing." "It's a sport." "You watch it on TV, right?" "Not that much." "Well, people watch it on TV." "Fighting's something that happens every day." "We're in jail." "You've been in jail a long time?" "Yes." "How long?" "Two years on this, ten years in New York and I was locked up almost all my juvey life." "On the fifth and sixth floors, inmates who move cells sometimes have to fight to prove themselves." "Entering a cell for the first time can be a tense moment." "We got a new man!" "Do you think he'll be all right in there?" "I hope so." "I hope so." "Inmates at Main Jail are locked in their cells 24 hours a day, except for two hours of yard a week." "Fighting is common - over status, over snacks and sweets known as commissary, or simply to pass the time." "GUARD READS ROLL CALL" "Officers spend time in the cells only rarely, during searches for contraband, drugs, home-made alcohol and weapons." "On the fifth floor, one such shakedown was under way." "A lot of times, what they do too is they'll get a little bag, a little plastic bag, and tie a string to it." "They'll flush the toilet so the bag is actually going halfway into the plumbing." "See what I mean?" "So they'll leave the little string there and the bag will go all the way in." "So when you look in, you're not going to see anything but a little string." "But then they'll just fish it out." "Not this time, though." "Not this time." "And right over here, these bars right here have a false bottom right here." "Oh, look, see." "Shank." "You just found that?" "Yeah, I just found it." "We find them all the time." "This is so that they can have a good grip on it." "That's why we do shakedowns, cos they can use that on us, you know." "I don't want to get stabbed with this." "Would this belong to one inmate or the whole cell would know about this?" "The whole cell might know about it but the thing of it is, in the jail system, in the jails, you don't want to be labelled as a snitch." "So even if you know something, you're not going to say anything because, if you're labelled as a snitch, then they might beat you up or stab you up." "So even if you know, you don't want to say anything." "You wouldn't want to get stabbed with that, huh?" "I was heading across town to another facility in the jail system." "With 1,300 beds, TGK is bigger and newer than Main Jail and is widely considered a safer environment." "It also has a special section for problem inmates." "We're entering the special management unit at TGK." "Usually it's high-profile cases." "Anyone with serious cases, serious behavioural issues, they're housed in here." "Locked in single cells, these inmates are also all pre-trial and therefore technically innocent." "Robert Shaw, how you doing?" "Yours says "shank history"." "Can you explain that?" "I don't know." "A shank is a knife, isn't it?" "A home-made knife." "Yeah." "Who do they say you stabbed?" "For what reason?" "You're saying there may have been drug dealing going on inside the jail?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "What kind of drugs?" "Whatever drugs you want." "What are you in jail for?" "Murder." "On whom?" "I didn't do it." "How long have you been in jail for?" "Five year." "Five years?" "Why so long?" "Waiting for court." "Who?" "Hector." "Hector's been up here seven years?" "Yeah, for rape." "Ten years?" "He raped somebody." "What are you charged with?" "Murder, attempted murder, kidnap and armed robbery." "And rape?" "No." "Why is he saying it's rape?" "I don't know why he say that." "Do you get on OK with your next-door neighbour here?" "No." "Why not?" "He tried to poison me." "How?" "Through here, right here." "He tried to poison me one night." "Why?" "He's just a hateful person, I guess." "Is he fooling around?" "Yeah, he's playing." "Step up to the door." "How you doing?" "All right." "Can we come in?" "This is your place?" "Yeah." "You said they accused you of murder, is that right?" "Yeah, triple murder." "Triple murder." "Yeah." "Three people were killed?" "Yeah." "And how many defendants?" "Er, three." "Three now." "So you had two alleged accomplices?" "Yeah." "What did they say it was about?" "Drug territory." "On the outside?" "Yeah." "They say you were some kind of a drug dealer?" "Yeah, say I was the drug man." "And what happened?" "Say, one of my homeboys' kids got killed." "Baby was 15 months old and they assassinated him and they say it was a retaliation, so..." "You said one of your friends had a 15-month-old baby?" "Yeah." "He was assassinated." "He was shot and killed?" "He got executed." "Really?" "Why?" "There's a drug war." "Rivalry." "Yeah." "So the prosecution contends that you and two accomplices went and executed three of their boys?" "Yeah." "Yeah." "In what sort of circumstances?" "Like, was it drive-by or do they say you went to their homes?" "No, they say they were ambushed in a car." "Where?" "Coming from court." "Coming from the courthouse, yeah." "Why were they coming from the courthouse?" "I guess they had a court day, one of them, or something like that." "I ain't really sure." "It was outside court or outside their houses?" "Outside of the court." "Right there in plain day?" "Yeah." "Do they have a strong case against you?" "I wasn't there, so I don't know." "Do they have witnesses?" "Yeah." "They say I was the trigger man." "Do they?" "Yeah." "What do you say?" "I wasn't there." "Where were you?" "I was home." "Doing what?" "Sleep." "Sleep." "And how long could they give you?" "I'm facing the death penalty." "Really?" "They say you stabbed someone to get in here." "Is that right?" "Yeah." "That what they said." "Who do they say you stabbed?" "Who they say I stabbed?" "Do you remember?" "It was another inmate in another unit." "I don't remember the name, but it was another inmate in another housing unit." "Do you know how to make a shank?" "Yeah." "How?" "I can make one out of that but I don't want to break it." "Out of this boom?" "No, out of that up there, that vent." "This?" "Yeah." "Why does it say, "No rap!" "Fuck the other side?"" "That mean, like, I ain't got no rap for nobody." "Is "the other side" the correctional officers?" "No, the other side is anybody out of bounds." "Meaning?" "Meaning anybody that's against what I stand for." "What do you stand for?" "I stand for my gang." "Who's your gang?" "My gang called Criminal Ground." "Who's that?" "That's my gang." "Who's in the gang?" "My little gang members." "How many are there?" "I don't know." "Are they all in here?" "No, only three of us here." "Where are the rest of them?" "Like, three dead and about two of them on the street." "There's not much of your gang left." "No." "No." "I ain't with them no more anyway, but that's what I stand for." "It was 1:30 in the morning." "I was heading to the Miami Jail Boot Camp." "Every four months, 38 of the younger inmates are offered a chance to avoid a prison sentence in return for participating in a gruelling, military-style training programme." "Any dogs in the house?" "THEY BARK" "EXCITED CHATTER" "Let's do this!" "Let's go!" "SHOUTING" "Welcome to Miami-Dade Boot Camp." "The first thing out your mouth will be "sir" and last thing out will be "sir"." "Understood?" "ALL:" "Yes, sir!" "No. "Sir, yes, sir." ALL:" "Yes, sir!" ""Sir, yes, sir." Is that understood?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "Is that understood?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "Get the frig out!" "Get out!" "Everybody get out!" "Get out!" "Get out!" "BANGING" "SHOUTING" "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "Go!" "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "I can't hear you!" "I can't hear you!" "Sir, yes, sir!" "Almost all the cadets have been convicted of violent crimes, many involving guns, from car-jacking and armed robbery to attempted murder." "Move!" "Move!" "Move it!" "You understand that?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "We're going to break you down and build you back up to the way we want you to be, a productive citizen out there in the community." "You understand that?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "We're going to offer you an opportunity to make positive change in your lives." "An opportunity to become a productive citizen and give back to the community what you took back." "You understand that?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "Welcome to Miami-Dade County Boot Camp, ladies." "Everything else from this point is up to you." "You understand that?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "Carry on." "THEY SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER" "Aye-aye, sir!" "I can't hear you!" "Aye-aye, sir." "How's it going in there?" "It's going well." "It's going well." "In the beginning it's like this, it's a little crazy." "You looked genuinely angry and annoyed at some of the things that take place with the new recruits." "I mean, is that just an act, in a way?" "In a way it is." "We're not here to be angry with them." "We're here to change their lives." "They shouldn't think that it's an act." "They need to believe that it's real, don't they?" "Oh, absolutely." "If they don't, then you lose 'em." "You lose 'em completely and that's not what we're here to do." "We're here to, you know, make an effective change." "To what extent can you make physical contact with them?" "We don't really get physical with them unless we have to, unless they get violent." "SHOUTING" "It's an act." "Faster!" "Faster!" "THEY SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER" "Push!" "The youngest inmate by several years, Brenton Smith, is already struggling." "Let's go!" "Get up!" "Aye sir!" "Aye, sir." "Aye, ma'am." "Now go!" "Aye, ma'am." "MUFFLED TALKING" "Aye, sir." "What was going on with that guy?" "He tried to leave." "We're not going to let him leave." "You think he's trying to leave?" "He said he wanted to leave." "We told him he's not going nowhere." "You think he's in the process of breaking?" "He's in the process of breaking." "He's young, the pressure's too much for him and he doesn't want do this." "How much time are you facing?" "Ten." "Ten years." "What you want to do?" "You want to do these ten years or you want to do these six months and go home with your family?" "What you want to do?" "Six months, sir." "You want to do six months?" "Now in order..." "You young." "You're 14?" "Yeah." "In order for you to make this here, this is an adult boot camp." "You got to think like an adult, you understand?" "Sir, yes, sir." "That's the only way you going to make it." "We ain't got time to baby you." "I see you, you green." "You green, but you got to go in there, you've got to try to conduct yourself like a man." "You understand that?" "Sir, yes, sir." "Go back in the squad." "Aye-aye, sir." "Can I ask a question?" "How old are you?" "14, sir." "You're 14?" "What did you get convicted of?" "Armed robbery, sir." "Armed robbery of what?" "What was it?" "A building, a bank or something?" "A person, sir." "A person." "You held someone up with a gun." "Is that what you did?" "Yes, sir." "Why did you do that?" "I don't know." "Did you have any offences before that?" "Grand theft auto." "Carrying a concealed weapon." "Do you want to go home?" "Is that what you're thinking?" "You want to finish?" "You'd rather go back to jail?" "What are you thinking?" "No, sir." "Speak freely." "He can answer freely, right?" "What is going through your mind right now?" "Stress." "All right." "Is he going to make it?" "Well, he has a good chance to make it, being that he's 14 and that..." "But through this though, he can't even stand up straight without moving his head?" "Well, that comes with time, that comes with time." "That's why we give them the 72-hour adjustment period." "You know what I'm saying?" "Right now, we're throwing things at 'em and they've never had structure in their life." "Nobody never told him what to do, when to do it, and how to do it and demand that it gets done." "Was he sentenced as an adult?" "Is that what happened in his case?" "Right." "He would have got ten years in an adult jail." "In an adult jail." "Adult prison." "And he elected, him and his lawyer or whomever, to send him to boot camp to see if he could do this programme." "I don't know the semantics of his case but he elected to come to boot camp rather than go to prison." "ALL:" "Aye, sir!" "On your feet." "ALL:" "Aye, sir!" "Too slow!" "Some time later, and despite the best efforts of the officers, one cadet was heading back to jail." "Do you know where you're going now?" "TGK." "You wanted to have another chance in there." "Why?" "I understand you weren't feeling well because of medication you were taking." "HE MUMBLES" "Let's go." "He was saying he wanted another chance now?" "Yes, sir." "Just now?" "Just now." "After all this we've been going through with him, he didn't want to talk to nobody." "He shut down." "We've been trying to work with him since he got here." "Is it possible he's going through some kind of drug withdrawal?" "When we found out through intake, when he first came in, he had been taking another inmate's psych medication for a whole week, so that's what he's going through." "Do you think you could have done it if it hadn't been for the medication?" "They said arson was on your record." "Yeah." "What do they say you burned down?" "Yours?" "No." "A friend's?" "No." "A stranger's?" "As revenge?" "All right, let's move." "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "Let's do this thing..." "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "ALL:" "Aye-aye, sir." "Aye-aye, sir." "ALL:" "Aye-aye, sir." "Eat." "Back at Main Jail, I'd been given permission to go into the cell of the inmate accused of fighting, Johnny Jackson." "You'd care to go in there now?" "Yeah." "What would you like?" "You like for all the inmates to go in the back?" "No, no, that's fine." "They can be out and about." "They can be out and about?" "Wait till he gets back, cos it's safer to have two instead of one." "Hi." "Louis." "Officer Pierre." "Officer Pierre and Officer Phileas." "CLANKING" "How you doing?" "Have we met you before?" "No, you haven't." "What's your name?" "Black." "Black?" "What are your charges?" "I got three bodies on me." "Three bodies?" "Yeah." "That means three murders?" "Mm-hm." "Are you convicted?" "No, not yet." "That's what they're charging you with?" "Yeah." "How long have you been waiting here?" "Four years." "How long?" "About four." "Four years?" "You've been in jail four years?" "Mm-hm." "How old are you?" "20." "So you came in when you were 16?" "Mm." "Can we see your face?" "No." "Why not?" "Because I don't want y'all to see my face." "How you doing, Larry?" "Yeah." "Good to see you." "So that's your corner?" "Yeah, this is my corner right here." "This is how I'm living." "And Johnny." "You're the newest one here, is that right?" "That's right." "Where is your stuff?" "My stuff is on the next bunk, over there." "My stuff's got to fit in one of these bags." "Hygiene." "How did you find it, coming into a new cell?" "Huh?" "It was good, new environment." "Every cell's like a family." "Did you have to wreck for a bunk?" "No." "Why not?" "Why not?" "They don't do it in every cell and plus, you know, if you've been around for a while or people know your face, then you're good." "So you're good on the fifth and sixth floors?" "Yeah." "Why?" "From being here a while?" "I've been down for two years on this, so it's not a new start." "Larry, did you know Johnny before he came in?" "No, but I heard his name, though." "He good." "Everybody good in here." "There's love in here." "When you came in, what did you do?" "Did you say hello to everyone?" "No, you come inside the cell." "You basically look around." "The people that's in the cell come out to take a look and see." ""OK, do we know this dude?" ""Is this dude..." Maybe he's a snitch, if his name's bad on the walks, you know, or if he's known." "So once they get your name in the air, they communicate with next door and stuff," ""Gotty's upstairs." "He just came from downstairs." "OK, who's Gotty?" "Anybody know him?"" ""Yeah, yeah, that's Gotty." "Blah, blah, blah."" "If it's good, you're good." "Now if they see you and they say, "OK, such-and-such came from downstairs."" ""Well, who's that?" "Oh, that's that dude that checked out a cell, was snitching and doing this and that."" "OK, now, that is a problem." "You've just arrived, so maybe you don't know, but is there anyone in here who has seniority in some way?" "Seniority?" "You talking like..." "This probably is Larry." "It's Larry." "You've been here the longest, Larry?" "Yeah, in this cell." "So you have weight in here?" "No, I ain't." "Listen here, man." "Ain't nobody putting down on nobody here, man." "This cell run itself." "Like he say, if your face good, you good." "We won't tolerate snitches in here." "Officer Phileas said there was an incident with a man called Vincent in the last couple of weeks." "That's the most recent incident that we have had on the floor, the last maybe two weeks or so." "Quite a serious one?" "You thought he might have been stabbed." "I thought he might have been." "In this cell." "He never named who did it, his assailant, so that person is still in here." "LAUGHTER Do you know who that was, Larry?" "I don't know nothing." "I didn't see nothing." "He said there was no snitches allowed in the cell." "He was telling." "What was he telling?" "MAN SCREAMS" "THEY LAUGH" "Fuck, man, you can't sleep in this shit, man." "What was he telling?" "He was a snitch, man." "He was a teller, man." "I don't know what was he telling, but he was a teller." "Thanks, guys." "Thank you." "A little later, it was time for Johnny Jackson's hearing about the assault in his old cell." "Have a seat." "Hello." "You're here for your disciplinary hearing?" "Mm-hm." "I need you to read your inmate's rights." "Initial by each one, then sign your name acknowledging that you read your inmate's rights." "So how do you plead?" "Guilty or not guilty to fighting?" "To fighting, guilty." "You want to tell me what happened?" "There was a psych patient and he just went psych, so he ended up getting..." "So when you say he went psych...?" "He pulled his privates out." "He was saying basically, "Eff everybody," you know." "So that's what the other inmate was doing?" "Yes." "That day, he snapped." "He just kind of lost it, so he was attacked." "He was attacked?" "Not by multiple people or..." "Just by you." "Yeah, not Gibson." "OK, not Gibson, just you." "OK, all right." "Well, that was easy." "How usual is it for the inmate just to say, "Yes, he did it?"" "We get it." "We get it sometimes." "Not all the time but most of the time, when they know that they might as well just go ahead and tell the truth." "I mean, he has kind of like..." "He kind of has..." "Not really a valid reason but, you know, if this particular person does have a psych history, nine times out of ten, there's some truth to the fact that he actually, you know, kind of went crazy on them." "And sometimes it's not always easy to get the officer right then and right there." "You're saying the inmate was acting up, was being weird, taking his privates out and stuff." "Would it not make more sense to call an officer and get him reassigned than give him a beating?" "Well, times like that, once he pulls his privates out and everybody's telling him stop, that's a disrespect, you know." "So if he can go as far as to do that, then spitting on you or attacking you - it could be anything next, you know." "How badly did you beat him?" "How badly did I beat him?" "Enough to make him stop." "Is it unusual for psych patients to be housed in the general population?" "If he's a bit mental, shouldn't he be in a separate area?" "It's not unusual." "What happens usually is, once they are cleared by the psych team, then we filter them through our general population." "There are some inmates who, when they're on meds, they can function in general population." "When they're off meds, anything goes." "You done?" "I'm done." "OK, Jackson, thank you so much." "OK?" "All right." "With all things considered, we'll do the best we can do." "OK?" "All right." "'The most common punishment for beating a fellow inmate is 30 days in solitary." "'I had a few more questions for Johnny.'" "You don't feel bad about doing that to a psych patient?" "No, they were a psych patient." "This is not a nuthouse." "If it is, if it's a nuthouse, then I'm crazy too, so I'm a psych patient too." "I mean, he can't help it." "He's ill, he's mentally ill, presumably, right?" "And so he doesn't really..." "He deserves sympathy and understanding, not to be beaten." "Exactly, but I feel like I deserve sympathy and understanding too." "I've been sitting here for two years." "You feel me?" "Yeah, but that doesn't make it OK to take out your frustration on him." "Why not?" "Isn't aggression and anger like a mental disease too?" "Well, I'm talking to you, I don't think you're crazy." "You seem like a reasonable person." "He seemed like one too." "He did?" "Yeah." "Until he went nutty..." "Exactly." "Then you look at that." "I went nutty too." "That doesn't seem rather brutal and animalistic to you?" "No." "It's part of life." "It's a part of life." "You wouldn't do that on the outside." "I wouldn't do it on the outside?" "You wouldn't." "You wouldn't behave in the same way on the outside." "Yeah." "If your next-door neighbour was doing something that bothered you, wouldn't you have a reasonable conversation?" "See, I had that conversation when I got out of the ten years in New York." "When you're institutionalised, that makes you feel like, "That's the way I respond," you know?" "I feel like I'm, in a way, institutionalised from doing the time that I did out in New York." "When I got out I told my sister and them and they told me you can't beat on people, it's like you're a monster if you do it." "And I told 'em I feel like if I don't do it, then I lose respect." "So which one's more important?" "For me to be seen like a monster in your eyes or me to feel like I don't have no respect in mine?" "Was this about respect?" "Of course." "In what way?" "Everything is about respect." "If a person disrespects you, then you assault them, right?" "No." "You don't?" "You're asking me?" "No." "Oh, that's the way I was brought up." "That's the way I thought it went." "All right." "Fall out!" "THEY SHOUT" "I was back at boot camp, where the cadets were now a few days into their training." "Under, under, under!" "Let's go!" "Let's go!" "Let's do it one time." "Just one!" "Let's go!" "Do it!" "Just one!" "Oh!" "Get the freak away from here!" "Go on, get round the trail!" "That should give you six inches of white at the bottom." "You put the ruler to make sure." "Once you have six, 12 plus six is 18, that's your 18 inches of white." "So now you should have no more questions." "Do you understand that?" "ALL:" "Sir, yes, sir." "I'm not making it right for you, you're going to do it yourself." "We're going to take care of it right now." "Don't worry, girl." "We're going to take care of all that right now." "INAUDIBLE" "BANGING" "Hey, don't make me put handcuffs on." "Don't make put the handcuffs on." "Do you understand me?" "You start beating on my door," "I'm going to put..." "You heard what I said." "Yeah, well, man." "Because you know I will, you know I will." "Beat on the door again, I will put handcuffs on." "Close the door, then." "Drill, bring me some handcuffs, Drill." "What is the situation here?" "Whenever they shut down, we don't tolerate shutdown." "He's a recycle." "He's been through the programme before so we don't really give them a second chance." "I need a 15-minute check sheet." "Put your hands behind your back, son." "No, behind your back, behind your back." "OK, son, have a seat or you can stand, but don't beat on my door again." "If not, I'm going to put shackles on you, do you understand?" "I'm going to go get the key." "What's your name?" "Emmanuel." "Emmanuel, have you had enough?" "You don't want to do any more of the boot camp?" "This ain't..." "There's always going to be somebody my colour doing it that's all we got to be." "I'm never going to be nobody." "Nobody else colour gets sent down." "Just black people." "I don't care about life no more." "Do you feel they're riding you too hard?" "No, it ain't nothing they're doing." "I ain't listening, man." "I'm ready to go ahead and tell them to send me to prison, man." "How long will they give you if you drop out?" "I don't care." "I don't care if they give me life, you know." "I don't care about life no more." "OK, listen up." "Right now, you need to start thinking what you're doing, cos all it takes is a second for us to ship you out and your whole life is going to change, you understand?" "You need to sit down, relax, and think, cos I'm going to come talk to you and you better get with the programme or you are going to be facing your judge real soon." "It's up to you." "I'm going to put it in your hands." "You've got the opportunity." "This is your second time." "Second opportunity." "You're not going to get a third one, son." "MUFFLED CHANTING" "Most of the cadets are from the safer, more modern facilities in the jail system, but among the faces," "I recognised one from the notorious sixth floor of the Main Jail." "Patrick was convicted of armed robbery." "Can we interview you next door?" "Can we take you next door and interview you?" "My name's Louis." "Oh, you talked to me at the major!" "Yeah, sixth floor." "Yeah." "Very different." "How are you adjusting?" "It's all right." "I can do it." "Yeah?" "I haven't got no problem with it." "How does it compare with Main Jail?" "It don't." "Totally different." "How did you get on on the sixth floor?" "I was good on the sixth floor." "Your kind of people?" "My kind of people." "In the files, it talked about, you'd been written up for taking someone else's commissary." "What happened?" "Extortion, I got caught for extortion." "Who was the guy and why did you feel it was OK to extort this guy?" "I don't know." "You need the commissary." "I was hungry, you know." "Had to do what I had to do." "Was he someone you knew?" "No." "Just someone in your cell?" "Someone..." "I was in 44 when I was at TGK." "It's survival of the fittest when you're in jail, so..." "To me as an outsider, that seems unfair, to take something that doesn't belong to you." "You know, you can't really justify it as survival of the fittest." "I can't explain it." "You never been to jail so you don't know what go on in jail, but this kind of shit happen all the time." "Do you still suppose that it's acceptable to behave in that way?" "I know it's not acceptable but it's jail." "We have no choice but to do this stuff." "The guy went to the officers, didn't he?" "He told them what happened." "Yeah." "What did you think about that?" "I wanted to kill him." "A snitch is shit, man." "Did you get to him?" "No." "Did you try to?" "No." "I was already handcuffed." "How do you feel about the future?" "I feel good about the future." "I'm not going to be in no place like this any more." "It seems to me that, in some ways, your thinking hasn't changed that much, especially when you talk about extortion inside the jail." "That's inside the jail." "When you get in here, you've got to have a different mind frame." "You can't think the same way that you do when you're on the street." "On the streets, my way of thinking was totally different." "I was trying to get a job, going to school, doing the right thing." "But when I got here..." "I got to survive." "Let me see your general orders." "Aye-aye, ma'am." "I'm talking to all of you." "ALL:" "Aye-aye, ma'am!" "Who doesn't know how to read?" "Who has a problem reading?" "What is the first general order?" "All at one time, first general order!" "ALL:" "I will obey all officers' orders quickly, willingly and without question." "INAUDIBLE" "Back at TGK, and a few of the inmates in solitary were getting one of their two hours of yard time a week." "I'd come to see the alleged triple-murderer Robert Shaw." "They've allowed me back into his cell." "Watch your step." "INMATES SHOUT Yeah!" "This is one of your novels?" "Yeah." "It's called...?" "The Last Cross." "And then The G-MASH General." "Yeah, that mean "Get Money And Stop Hating"." "Get Money And Stop Hating?" "Yeah." "How many novels have you written?" "Like, six." "And then what do you do with them?" "I send them out to my girl, she try to get them copyrighted." "You're going to get them published?" "Yeah, I'm trying to." "You wrote those since you were in here?" "Yeah." "Nothing else to do." "I try to read." "I try to learn, like, five words out the dictionary every day." "I probably do that, like, three times a week." "Have you learned your words today?" "No, probably at five o'clock." "Yesterday?" "Yesterday." "What words did you learn?" "I learned loquacious... kooka... kookaburra." "That's like a bird." "Loquacious, kookaburra and...brat...bratruss?" "Bratross?" "Brat..." "B-R-A-T..." "Bratwurst?" "It's a meat." "A sausage." "Yeah, it's a sausage." "I had them three words yesterday but I ain't mastered them yet." "You said five words." "I only got three because I couldn't pronounce one of them very well so it had me stuck." "But them three I know." "I just recently found out you were on the sixth floor at County." "Yeah." "And then what happened?" "I say, "Man, come move me out this cell." In effect, you checked out?" "Yeah, yeah, in a sense." "Wouldn't they view that as soft?" "Yeah, but you got to understand this too, like I say," "God give you a mind to think with and a heart for your courage." "You can't think with your heart, you can't make no move off of emotion." "God gave me a mind to think and move." "So I called, got my ass out that cell and I live to fight another day." "I ain't going to sit in that cell and see the motherfucker break my motherfucking jaw, knock my teeth out, just so I can say, "Oh, I'm gangsta." ""I stayed in the cell." That ain't smart." "So I moved." "You talk a bit more openly about not feeling the need to conform to the code, you know, of the fifth and sixth floor." "Yeah." "Checking out and stuff like that." "So many of the guys, for them, that would be..." "Do you know what that is?" "Dudes..." "That would be showing weakness." "No, man." "Like I say, dudes..." "Everybody think they got to put out this image like he's all that, "I'm gangsta," and all this." "But motherfucker be cowards on a one-on-one basis, man." "Motherfuckers are going to be like that." "Y'all probably went to the sixth floor, filming, and everybody want to be tough guys." "They'd be the same motherfuckers who, you get their ass on the ground with that pistol in their face, they'd be screaming and hollering," ""I got a wife and kids," and all this. "Oh, my mom,"" "and all this." "No, I don't want to hear that shit now." "It's too late." "That's all that is." "That's all that is." "There's so many people in here who are accused of shooting and being involved in a gangster lifestyle." "Yeah." "Why is that going on so much?" "Me, personally, it's just..." "I always been like a... like a slimeball person." "Like, I always be on some..." "Like being a snake, because I was raised..." "Motherfuckers who I seen as my idols and my mentors was snakes and that's the only thing I knew growing up." "Me and you do something together and it's time to divide the money, if I don't cross you out for your money," "I'll feel like you're going to do it to me." "So it's like, my mentors was snakes." "What about your parents?" "My parents..." "My grandma, I was raised by my grandma." "You know, a grandma can't restrict too much the things you do and my daddy wasn't around." "My daddy was a street guy, so any time he come round," "I'm looking at the same shit I'm seeing from dudes I look up to." "He come round in nice cars and smoking and the only time he come round was when I did something wrong, and chastise me, and punch me in the face and whatever and break me off and he gone." "So I never see him until they call him, saying," ""You know, that motherfucker stole a car or some shit."" "That's when he come round." "So..." "I ain't really ever had no families like that." "No." "You told me last time you might be looking at the death penalty." "Yeah, I'm facing the death penalty right now." "Yeah." "So imagine that, sitting in this cell here 24 hours a day with that on your back." "Knowing it's a possibility that you never touching the street again, period." "I die in this shit." "I'm 32, so I still got my whole life ahead of me." "So..." "One, two!" "Four!" "One, two!" "Five!" "One, two!" "Six!" "One, two!" "Seven!" "One, two!" "Eight!" "One, two!" "One, two!" "Nine!" "One, two..." "INAUDIBLE" "Five, four, three, two and one." "ALL:" "Yes, sir." "Somebody tell me what is the title of our lesson." "Yes, sir, over here." "Give it a shot." "To change the way you think." "Change the way you what?" "Think." "Everybody." "Change the way you what?" "Think." "Most of you, before you set out to commit whatever crime you did..." "Some of you did it on the spur of the moment, some of you it was a crime of passion, so to speak, you just reacted." "But before that happened, you thought about it." "Some of you even plotted, some of you even strategised when and how you were going to do this." "OK?" "So if you think about it, where the mind goes, the man follows." "Say that with me." "Where the mind goes..." "ALL:" "Where the mind goes... ..the man follows." "ALL: ..the man follows." "Think about that." "Francisco Ortiz." "Ortiz, Francisco!" "Aye-aye, sir!" "Pick it up!" "Sorry, sir." "At boot camp, another platoon, who are three months into their training were taking their last test before graduation." "Change step." "March." "Mark time." "March." "Change step." "Leadership qualities." "Aye-aye, sir, request to speak, sir." "Speak!" "Aye-aye, sir." "Honour, nobility of mind, probity or integrity." "Stop, sir." "Those are done." "Third general order." "Aye, sir." "Request to speak, sir." "Speak." "Aye, sir." "Third general order." "I will refrain from the use of profanity, violence and/or threats of violence." "Stop, sir." "Those are done." "Congratulations." "Aye, sir." "Get out and hurry up!" "Aye, sir." "Mule kick!" "Mule kick!" "Hurry up." "Five, six, seven, eight, nine..." "Aye, sir!" "Sorry, sir!" "You got to hurry up." "Aye, sir!" "Aye, sir!" "Forward...march!" "Change step." "March." "Change step." "March." "11th general order." "Aye-aye, sir." "Request to speak, sir." "Speak." "Aye-aye, sir, 11th general order is," "I'll maintain proper military bearings at all times." "Stop, sir, those are done." "THEY SHOUT OVER EACH OTHER" "What went wrong with that one?" "Huh?" "He seemed like he was doing quite well." "He was doing good, but you have to say every word in the right way." "You can't skip a word, you can't add a word." "If it says "one", you can't say "once"." "It has to be verbatim." "Are you disappointed?" "Yes, I'm disappointed, because I'm the primary." "He'll be all right." "That means you're the main man in charge of that little platoon." "Yes." "So you've seen them kind of grow and go on this journey." "Correct." "Have you seen changes in him?" "Yes, I've seen a change in all of them." "There's a big difference." "Fourth general order." "Aye-aye, sir." "Fourth general order is, I will not use tobacco products, illegal drugs and/or alcohol." "Stop, sir, those are done." "Congratulations." "Aye-aye, sir." "Mule-kick it out of here." "Yes, sir." "I was making one last visit to Main Jail and the inmates of the notorious fifth and sixth floors." "WOMAN:" "Hello." "Are you in here awaiting trial on something?" "No, I just had trial yesterday." "What did they give you?" "They gave me 90 years, baby." "90 years?" "Yeah, 90 years." "Are you serious?" "I got caught with a stick, man." "I killed about three, four niggers." "With a what?" "A stick, an AK47 semi-automatic rifle." "They know what that is." "That's what we're doing, baby." "We chopping' heads off." "Had about 37 fights." "Broken hand, swollen knuckles." "If you want to eat, you got to fight." "If you want to use the phone, you got to fight." "I'd come to see the jail as, in a strange way, not so different from boot camp, drilling the young inmates with its own brutal code and discipline." "In yard, I spotted an inmate I recognised from Johnny Jackson's cell." "What were you accused of?" "What was I accused of?" "Murder." "And you were convicted." "Yeah." "What did they give you?" "40." "40 years." "When did that happen?" "Er..." "May?" "Was it 21st?" "You were out with the court on the 23rd." "Yeah, I stabbed a baser." "He didn't want to pay my money." "A crackhead?" "Yeah, yeah." "You called him a baser?" "Yeah, that fucking nigger didn't want to pay me." "Now I do 40." "You stabbed him?" "Yeah." "For 20?" "Yeah." "And killed him?" "Yeah, I killed that motherfucker." "How old are you?" "21. 21." "How do you feel?" "To be honest, when I'm here, I feel relief." "Why?" "Out there, there's too much pain." "Why?" "Got to take care of Mom, who's an alcoholic, don't do nothing." "My brother's a nobody, sister want to prostitute all day." "That's how I've grown up." "So in here, I feel relief." "Were you high when you stabbed him?" "No." "No." "I just say it's pride." "You know, when you're in a gang, you got things to prove." "THEY SHOUT" "Across town at Metro West there was a new arrival from boot camp." "The 14-year-old armed robber Brenton Smith was back in jail and looking at a possible ten-year sentence." "What happened?" "I quit." "Why?" "What was it that was so difficult?" "I don't know, I just wasn't used to it." "Did you flip on them?" "No, I just said, "I quit."" "When you're outside, you live with your mum." "Is that right?" "Yeah." "She looks after you?" "I guess." "What does she do?" "She work at the post office." "She's a postal worker?" "Mm-hm." "Delivering letters?" "No, she work IN the post office." "Sorting and things like that?" "She must be pretty upset." "Yeah, she was pretty disappointed when I quit." "She was kind of mad for, like, a couple of days." "Do you go out for classes?" "No." "Do you know why?" "No." "Does anyone know why Brenton is not going to school?" "He's in confinement." "For his safety because he's a juvenile?" "For his safety because he's a juvenile." "Could he not be somewhere where he was a juvenile and safe and going to school?" "You would have to take that up with Administration." "How were you doing at school on the outside?" "It was summertime, but how I was doing at school?" "I get A's and B's but in conduct I get B's and C's." "Maybe a D sometimes, maybe." "You really don't know why you got into trouble a little bit over the years?" "Uh..." "I grew up too fast, that's probably how." "Only thing I can say." "And the schools I went to, but that's about it." "The school?" "You can't completely blame it on the school, but some of it." "What was wrong with it?" "I saw a lot of violence there." "I guess I grew up around it." "You don't know when your next court date is?" "No." "No." "Probably..." "I don't know." "You don't know how long you'll be in here?" "Just waiting." "DRILL SERGEANT SHOUTS ORDERS" "DRILL SERGEANT CALLS, CADETS ANSWER" "THEY SHOUT" "The newest cadets were now a month into their four months of boot camp." "Of the 37 that had started, there were 26 left." "One of those doing well was the inmate who'd come from the sixth floor, Patrick." "Several of the drill sergeants picked him out as the most outstanding cadet." "For an inmate from the toughest area of the jail, who'd also been found guilty of extorting other inmates, it was a surprising transformation." "Where does that buckle need to be?" "Aye-aye, sir." "Line it up." "Aye-aye, sir." "Done, sir." "Turn and face me." "Aye-aye, sir." "DRILL SERGEANT CALLS, PATRICK ANSWERS" "Give me my 18 leadership qualities." "Aye-aye, sir." "Request to speak, sir." "Speak." "Aye-aye, sir." "The 18 leadership qualities are bearing, courage, decisiveness, dependability, discipline, endurance, enthusiasm, ethics, honesty, honour, integrity, judgement, knowledge, loyalty, respect, self-esteem, teamwork, unselfishness." "Stop, sir, those are done." "Done, sir, done." "Cadet Oselin." "Aye-aye, sir." "I am reviewing your progress in boot camp." "You understand that, right?" "Sir, yes, sir." "Based on your evaluation by all your premier drill sergeants, you are passing boot camp." "You understand that?" "Sir, yes, sir." "They pretty much gave you good reviews overall." "You understand that, right?" "Sir, yes, sir." "You need to keep doing what you're doing." "You need to stay focused." "Aye-aye, sir." "You need to stay motivated." "Aye-aye, sir." "Do you have any questions on anything?" "Sir, no sir." "You're dismissed." "Aye-aye, sir." "How you doing?" "Good to see you again." "I'm good." "How's it going?" "It's all right." "I understand you're doing really well here, that's what I've been told." "Do you feel that?" "Do you have a sense that it's going well?" "Yeah, it's an easy programme." "Basically you just work enough and do that all day." "But they're shouting at you a lot." "Yeah." "That doesn't bother you?" "No." "Why not?" "You can't do nothing, it ain't like I can..." "I can't do nothing." "I got to just take all the punches." "They've made you squad leader, is that right?" "No, I'm the flag detail." "You're the flag detail." "Is that the same kind of thing?" "Is that better?" "I think so, I don't know." "They didn't tell you?" "Did that feel good?" "Yeah, a little bit." "A little bit." "Yeah." "So you feel confident you're going to make it all the way through?" "Yeah." "When you were outside before, were you involved in the sort of "streets" lifestyle of, I don't know, running with a bad crowd, some criminal people around you, maybe some guns were around, that kind of thing?" "Was that part of your lifestyle at all?" "I didn't try to make it part of my lifestyle, but it was." "I got out of prison, I tried to change but..." "In the big picture, you know, in the bigger sense, do you feel like this is a helpful programme or are you just trying to get through it?" "I feel like this is a helpful programme." "Are you enjoying boot camp?" "Boot camp is comedy to me." "All that screaming and then all that screaming, you know, making you do..." "That's all performing for me." "It's comedy, man." "It's all funny." "You say it's comedy and yet you take it very seriously." "Yeah." "Just..." "It's hard to explain." "I do think it's comedy but, at the same time, they're trying to help us." "Lot of kids in the squad, they don't want to be helped." "There's a lot of other cadets like me, we're trying to reform, we're trying to do right." "So we think, ain't no reason for them to be all in our face in front of me, like all in our face, cussing at us, all this." "That's just part of the routine." "Yeah, it's part of the routine." "That's why I feel like it's comedy." "You feel confident about the future?" "Yes, I do." "I know I'm going to get out there and better myself and become the perfect citizen, like one of the general orders." "I'm going to put that into practice when I get out." "You know, we talked a little bit about, in jail, and extorting other people who..." "You said you were hungry, so you took some food from someone because you could." "You said it's like a jungle." "It's the survival of the fittest." "Survival of the fittest." "You believe that?" "Yeah, I believe that." "Did you feel sorry for the people?" "Nope, no sympathy." "Why?" "No sympathy." "Why?" "I just don't." "Is that, like, a rule?" "It's not..." "You could say that is a rule for me." "I don't have no sympathy for no..." "I don't have no sympathy for the next man." "I don't know, that's one thing I've got to change." "What is wrong with having sympathy, in theory?" "You know, why would it be a bad thing to have sympathy for other people?" "I don't know, cos I feel like, if another man was in my shoes, he would have had no sympathy for me, so why have sympathy for the next man?" "That expression, "GABOS,"" "have you heard that?" ""Game ain't based on sympathy?"" "Game ain't based on sympathy, you're right." "You believe that?" "I believe that to the fullest." "But you're trying to get out of the game." "Yeah." "Trying to get out the game." "Cos the gang going to either get me 100 years or six feet, so I've got to get out." "First squad, to the rear, march, second squad, to the rear, march." "HE SHOUT ORDERS" "For cadets to overcome a lifetime of chaos in a matter of months is a lot to ask." "It may be that some of those who do well at boot camp are not the most rehabilitated but the most adaptable and that the same skills that help an inmate survive at Main Jail can serve them here too." "For at least a few, the brutal code of the sixth floor might be channelled into the chance of a new life." "Subtitles by Red Bee Media Ltd" "E-mail subtitling@bbc.co.uk"