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A Look Back At Dangerous US Supermax Prisons Of The 1990s · The Evolution of Evil - True Crime Stories

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Speaker 1: Fremont County, Colorado. Amidst the hayfields. In this sleepy corner
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Speaker 1: of the Southern Rockies stand fourteen prisons. Corrections is now
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Speaker 1: one of the fastest growing industries in the United States.
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Speaker 1: Fear and loathing of violent crime led the American public
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Speaker 1: to demand get tough policies. Legislators did not let them down.
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Speaker 1: In fifteen years, the prison population has almost doubled to
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Speaker 1: more than a million. Sentences are getting longer. At least
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Speaker 1: three of the men in this film are destined to
0:35
Speaker 1: die in prison. How to warehouse such criminals until that
0:40
Speaker 1: point is a concern of the whole nation. An open
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Speaker 1: population maximum security prison is dangerous territory for prisoners and
0:50
Speaker 1: guards alike. Prison gangs, sexual predators, drug pushes, and violence
0:57
Speaker 1: create a nightmare for the weak and vulnerable inmates. Outnumbered
1:01
Speaker 1: guard by more than seventy to one, the system is
1:10
Speaker 1: under intense pressure. One solution is to remove the most
1:14
Speaker 1: dangerous prisoners and tame them in high caste facilities, reforming
1:19
Speaker 1: them until they're ready to re enter a less expensive
1:21
Speaker 1: prison life. That's the theory behind the so called supermax
1:26
Speaker 1: prisons like the new sixty six million dollar Federal ADX
1:30
Speaker 1: at Florence, Colorado Supermax was born here Alcatraz Island on
1:38
Speaker 1: San Francisco Bay. In nineteen thirty four, the island's military
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Speaker 1: jail was turned into an escape proof superprison to hold
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Speaker 1: America's most dangerous criminals. One of those criminals was Willy Radcay,
1:56
Speaker 1: now eighty four years old. In nineteen forty two, Willie
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Speaker 1: topped the FBI's ten most wanted lists for bank robbery
2:02
Speaker 1: and kidnapping in states across America.
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Speaker 2: I was a kid that never should have been born.
2:16
Speaker 2: We had a priest at the Catholic school, Saint John
2:19
Speaker 2: the Baptist in Kansas, Kansas, and he'd say, you steal
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Speaker 2: a penny out of a dead man's eye.
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Speaker 1: The cockshaw young hoodlum was to spend seven years on
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Speaker 1: the rock. His best friend would be George machine gun Kelly.
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Speaker 2: Alcatraz was kind of a scary word. No chance there
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Speaker 2: is going to be getting away because I was a
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Speaker 2: maximum prison at that time. The boat ride was rough
2:52
Speaker 2: and everybody kept thinking what's going to happen next. I
3:03
Speaker 2: was barefoot, pair of pants on and his shirt. No
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Speaker 2: one to close at all. We marched up at cold hill.
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Speaker 2: They were given out numbers. My number was six sixty six,
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Speaker 2: the sign of Satan. The warden was there. I finally
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Speaker 2: saw Salt Water Johnson after reading so much about him.
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Speaker 2: They said he was quite a man. I looked him
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Speaker 2: over good, but I noticed he gave each and everyone,
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Speaker 2: every one of us, a good up and down look.
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Speaker 2: I could see his mind saying, what's this guy think
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Speaker 2: he's going to do here.
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Speaker 1: With the onset of the liberal sixties, the reforming Attorney
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Speaker 1: General Robert Kennedy decided Alcatraz's damp dungeons were too harsh.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen sixty three, he closed the prison. For more
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Speaker 1: than a decade, America had no supermax, but during the seventies,
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Speaker 1: prison violence escalated. On one day in nineteen eighty three,
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Speaker 1: two guards were murdered at Marian Federal Penitentiary, Illinois. Marian
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Speaker 1: was locked down, inmates were permanently confined to their cells.
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Speaker 1: The new supermax era had begun. Westville Maximum Control Complex
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Speaker 1: one of two supermaxes in Indiana. Westville MCC has been
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Speaker 1: accused in court of abusing prisoners. As a result, its
4:39
Speaker 1: operations are overseen by a federal judge. This is the
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Speaker 1: first time any media has been allowed inside here, a
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Speaker 1: man is allowed just one hour's solitary recreation a day
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Speaker 1: in a glass walled wreck room. For the other twenty
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Speaker 1: three hours he's locked up up alone in his cell.
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Speaker 1: This is the end of the line for prisoners deemed
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Speaker 1: unable to live by the rules. Critics call these prisons
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Speaker 1: control units. The guard's prisoner ratio is more than one
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Speaker 1: to one. The minimum sentence is two years. Most inmates
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Speaker 1: so longer jump ready for.
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Speaker 3: Rect Oh what's he gonna do?
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Speaker 4: You have finished year?
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Speaker 5: No one comes straight from the streets or from the
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Speaker 5: county jail to MCC to thirday time. They come directly
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Speaker 5: from another institution, rightly kind of thing had done to
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Speaker 5: get here? It would be assault continues, assaults on staff
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Speaker 5: members of our institution, assaults on other offenders, attempted escapes, escapes,
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Speaker 5: sexual contact with other offenders or other staff members, hardcore
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Speaker 5: gang members, heavy gang activities, and the other institutions things.
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Speaker 6: Of that nature.
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Speaker 1: Correctional officers feel safe working here. Some female officers say
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Speaker 1: they would not work in an open population prison. But
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Speaker 1: keeping men caged up can never be an easy way
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Speaker 1: to earn a living, and it's always controversial.
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Speaker 7: We don't abuse the offenders. They're human. Therefore we treat
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Speaker 7: 'em as human. We show them the type respect that
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Speaker 7: they show us. The public thing. Okay, you are a
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Speaker 7: prison guard. You were there to keep these people away
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Speaker 7: from me. Really their opinion knew we're not much better
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Speaker 7: than them.
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Speaker 1: When he was just seventeen years old, j Thompson was
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Speaker 1: sentenced to death for the murder of seventy two year
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Speaker 1: old William Hilborne and his sixty five year old wife Mary.
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Speaker 1: With an accomplice, Thompson went to the couple's house to
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Speaker 1: steal money to buy drugs. The Hillborns were stabbed thirty
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Speaker 1: to forty times, but remained alive while the two men
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Speaker 1: searched for money. The judge said there were indications that
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Speaker 1: the Hillborns may have been tortured before they were finally killed.
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Speaker 1: Thompson's death sentence was later set aside on technical grounds
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Speaker 1: and because of his age when the crime was committed.
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Speaker 1: He's now serving one hundred and twenty years. His Westville
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Speaker 1: sentence is for another stabbing, this time in prison an individual.
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Speaker 8: Basically, we tried to intimidate friend of mine and insulted him. Essentially,
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Speaker 8: and it escalated into a situation and in the end
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Speaker 8: man was dead.
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Speaker 1: The other prisoner was stabbed more than twenty one times
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Speaker 1: by Thompson and three others using a homemade weapon. J.
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Speaker 1: Thompson knows better than most the confrontational nature of prison life.
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Speaker 8: There's always predators in prison, those that will steal from
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Speaker 8: you or you know, try and rob you, sexual assaults
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Speaker 8: or just really the majority of its sexual intimidation.
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Speaker 3: You know.
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Speaker 1: Solitary confinement may neutralize disruptive prisoners, but it can also
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Speaker 1: lead to mental breakdown and even self mutilation.
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Speaker 8: The cells are enclosed, so there's no bars.
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Speaker 6: Actually the.
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Speaker 8: Course, the door is solid still with a small window
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Speaker 8: and l there's a light on in the cell for
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Speaker 8: twenty four hours a day, seven what bold. So you
9:10
Speaker 8: have to either get used to sleeping with something around
9:13
Speaker 8: your head over your eyes or just sleep with the
9:15
Speaker 8: light on it.
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Speaker 1: The Eighth Amendment to the US Constitution prohibits cruel and
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Speaker 1: unusual punishment. Federal courts repeatedly question weather conditions in Supermac's
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Speaker 1: prisons are unconstitutional.
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Speaker 7: When they're locked up for twenty three, sometimes twenty four
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Speaker 7: hours of the day. To me, that's that's their punishment.
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Speaker 7: We're not here to reform them. They did something to
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Speaker 7: get sent here, and part of that punishment is sitting
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Speaker 7: thinking about what you've done, giving you that time to
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Speaker 7: get in touch with yourself and just think about it.
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Speaker 7: It's not cruel and unusual.
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Speaker 9: You know.
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Speaker 7: They do have contact with the staff members, so it's
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Speaker 7: not like they're locked away and forgotten about.
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Speaker 2: You.
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Speaker 10: Ready for outside rack.
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Speaker 8: They alternate when you come out, so you don't come
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Speaker 8: out at the same time every day. You can't set
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Speaker 8: your schedule by that. Essentially, the only activities are basketball.
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Speaker 6: Uh.
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Speaker 8: You know, you might bounce basketball around or shoot it
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Speaker 8: a little bit. They have these still bicycles that you
11:00
Speaker 8: know are s really useless and uh tennis ball. So
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Speaker 8: if you're gonna really exercise, uh, it comes down to
11:19
Speaker 8: calisthenics uh. In essence and UH or maybe running a
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Speaker 8: s small circle.
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Speaker 9: UH.
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Speaker 6: A lot.
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Speaker 1: In there are of freedom from the confines of their cell.
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Speaker 1: Inmates can choose between an indoor an outside rack. Today
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Speaker 1: Thompson was chosen a brief taste of fresh air and
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Speaker 1: a glimpse of sky through steel mesh in outside rag.
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Speaker 8: Really nothing changes and uh, and it's just a continuous routine,
12:08
Speaker 8: come out for recreation for fifteen minutes or whatever, and uh,
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Speaker 8: get a ten minute shower. During that ten minute shower,
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Speaker 8: you have to within that period of time shave, uh,
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Speaker 8: you know, cleanse yourself.
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Speaker 6: And so forth.
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Speaker 8: And uh so uh, you'd have to learn to get
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Speaker 8: pretty quick about that stuff. And uh, but you do
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Speaker 8: have awful lot of time in that cell that you
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Speaker 8: have to occupy.
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Speaker 10: Did you take your belt off? Please?
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Speaker 1: Money, drugs, and weapons are the hard currency of prison life.
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Speaker 1: Even in a supermax, every officer is searched before starting work.
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Speaker 1: Frequent cell search use or shakedowns, help maintain security but
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Speaker 1: are deeply resented by inmates.
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Speaker 11: During a shakedown, we we hope to find any contraband
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Speaker 11: that the offender might have or prohibited property, and that
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Speaker 11: those items are defined. Contraband is an item that that
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Speaker 11: is restricted for the offender to have in his possession,
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Speaker 11: whether that's some type of a weapon or some type
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Speaker 11: of drug parafernealia or things of that nature. We hope
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Speaker 11: to find those items before the finder gets to use
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Speaker 11: either one of 'em.
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Speaker 12: Sometimes they'll keep items off of the trades, food items
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Speaker 12: to say, maybe to make foods or whatever. Keep medication
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Speaker 12: that should have been taken other offenders, magazines or property
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Speaker 12: that they shouldn't have. And I feel it's their way
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Speaker 12: of like taking back some of the control, you know,
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Speaker 12: cause virtually there is no control here as far as
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Speaker 12: they are concerned.
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Speaker 11: In the beginning, we had a few offenders that tried
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Speaker 11: to bring in, uh, some type of homemade weapons or whatever,
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Speaker 11: usually in in in a body cavity of some sort,
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Speaker 11: and we haven't had anything like that, and uh quite
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Speaker 11: a while. We've taken away all the freedoms that they
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Speaker 11: had while they incarcerated in an open population setting. We
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Speaker 11: have gone further and taken those freedoms away, the freedoms
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Speaker 11: that allowed those individuals to run with gangs and gave
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Speaker 11: them the opportunity for gang violence or inmate on intimate violence,
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Speaker 11: to run drugs inside the institution, to make weapons, to
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Speaker 11: assault staff.
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Speaker 1: The contrast between Westville MCC with around one hundred prisoners
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Speaker 1: and Indiana State Prison with sixteen hundred could not be
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Speaker 1: more extreme. Now. A sergeant at Westville, Todd Kamlitter, began
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Speaker 1: his career here in one of the oldest penitentiaries in
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Speaker 1: the United States.
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Speaker 11: In an old population setting. At the prison where I worked,
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Speaker 11: it was usually about eighty to ninety offenders to one
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Speaker 11: officer and at any given time, and it was often
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Speaker 11: felt that those offenders could take control of those housing
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Speaker 11: units whenever they wanted to, and which is a scary
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Speaker 11: thought for everybody. I was much more vulnerable working there
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Speaker 11: because of the contact that you have with offenders. They're
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Speaker 11: out of their restraints, and if one happen to have
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Speaker 11: a gudge, yes see then see. It was constantly looking
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Speaker 11: over my shoulder wondering what I was doing there or
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Speaker 11: w w what what possessed me to work in that
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Speaker 11: type of environment.
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Speaker 8: Prison's not safe. Guards are there to keep you there.
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Speaker 8: They're not there to protect you, per se. I mean,
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Speaker 8: if they see somebody pull a a knife out, you
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Speaker 8: can believe they're not gonna jump between you and that
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Speaker 8: fella with the knife. You know, usually you're gonna see
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Speaker 8: the bottom of their feet as they run away, which
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Speaker 8: is understandable.
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Speaker 13: Really, just about everybody.
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Speaker 8: Has weapons in prison, doesn't matter how many cell searches
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Speaker 8: prison searches they have. There's always weapons, and you have
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Speaker 8: to have a weapon because your next enemy's probably gonna
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Speaker 8: have a weapon. And if he's got a two foot
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Speaker 8: long knife, and and you're bare handed, you're gonna lose.
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Speaker 1: The state's prison's convict cats have been in these cell
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Speaker 1: houses for longer than any life. Uh at least one
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Speaker 1: prison that has been killed fighting over ownership of a feline.
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Speaker 1: The most of prisoner at Westville can hope for is
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Speaker 1: a few books, a Walkman radio, and after three months
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Speaker 1: good behavior, a TV set, which he must buy himself.
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Speaker 1: In nineteen ninety two, inmates took the prison to federal court,
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Speaker 1: claiming physical and mental abuse. As a result, Westville's operations
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Speaker 1: are now overseen by a judge, like prisons in thirty
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Speaker 1: nine other states, but no judge has yet ruled Supermac's
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Speaker 1: prisons illegal.
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Speaker 2: If I was locked up in match Sale twenty three
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Speaker 2: hours a day, I don't think I could make it.
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Speaker 2: I really don't know just what would happen. I think
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Speaker 2: I could last it pretty long, but it'd be a
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Speaker 2: hard time to do.
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Speaker 1: A training exercise in an empty pod. The prisoner is
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Speaker 1: an officer with instructions to play his roll to the full.
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Speaker 11: This extraction team has been assembled to extract Defender Lawson
17:06
Speaker 11: from sell B three one zero four.
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Speaker 14: And first of all, I'm giving you the record order
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Speaker 14: to quit.
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Speaker 11: The reason for this action is the fender lost in
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Speaker 11: assaulted staff.
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Speaker 6: Is there anything gonna help you?
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Speaker 15: Order?
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Speaker 1: The Federal court order on Westville means cell extractions are
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Speaker 1: now rare.
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Speaker 6: What seems to be the problem.
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Speaker 8: In the past, it didn't take much to be extracted,
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Speaker 8: but nowadays there's a uh far more scrutiny on uh
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Speaker 8: that type of things. So uh you have to essentially
17:42
Speaker 8: uh bring it on yourself really, Uh that is, they'll
17:46
Speaker 8: give you a couple of warnings, you know, come cuff
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Speaker 8: up or whatever, and uh if you continue to refuse,
17:52
Speaker 8: then they'll put the squad together.
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Speaker 1: Selex attractions are dangerous and feared by officers and inmates.
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Speaker 11: Team consists of Number one is Officer Fredericks. You'll be
18:05
Speaker 11: in charge of the shield. Wheber two is Officer Gibson.
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Speaker 11: You'll be in charge of defender's right arm. Number three
18:12
Speaker 11: is Officer Taylor. Have you be in charge of defender's
18:14
Speaker 11: left arm. Number four Officer Shivers, be in charge of
18:17
Speaker 11: the defender's right leg. Number five Officer Booker, you be
18:21
Speaker 11: in charge the offender's left leg. Nurse Homer has been
18:24
Speaker 11: placed on standby. She will remain in a secured area
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Speaker 11: until needed. Camera operator as the sergeant Brokeholder, please stay
18:30
Speaker 11: the day and time as his person.
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Speaker 9: The camera time is two thirty three PMS June twelfth,
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Speaker 9: nineteen ninety five.
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Speaker 14: You proceed to bepon he heard I heard a song?
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Speaker 10: You heard me?
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Speaker 9: I did no, no, nobody, I didn't never nobody any up.
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Speaker 1: Simulating a real extraction. The whole process is videotaped in
19:13
Speaker 1: case the prisoner sues.
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Speaker 14: I'll stand up. I'll stand up.
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Speaker 4: Does that stand up?
19:22
Speaker 3: Hey?
19:23
Speaker 6: Hey, heymen.
19:24
Speaker 1: They try to take Russie down.
19:26
Speaker 11: They try to take RUSSI woo woo wo sassap woo
19:31
Speaker 11: whoo wo.
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Speaker 14: I did no, no nobody. I'm just trying to get
19:38
Speaker 14: along with everybody.
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Speaker 1: Ninety five percent of all prisoners will one day be
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Speaker 1: free to return to society. How does prison prepare them
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Speaker 1: to be good neighbors? This question is central to the
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Speaker 1: philosophy here at oak Park Heights in Minnesota, more than
19:56
Speaker 1: half the prisoners here have killed someone. Almost all have
19:59
Speaker 1: committed crime against the person. This is an earth sheltered
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Speaker 1: maximum security prison, literally built in a hole in the ground.
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Speaker 1: Many prison insiders consider Oak Park Heights the most secure
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Speaker 1: prison in America.
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Speaker 16: Since we opened in nineteen eighty two, we have not
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Speaker 16: had an escape or serious escape attempt. We have had
20:25
Speaker 16: several serious assaults, but have yet to experience our first homicide.
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Speaker 16: We have to recognize that inmates are human beings just
20:32
Speaker 16: like ourselves, and that they have committed some atrocious felonies.
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Speaker 16: So we think it's a very important philosophical initiative we've
20:40
Speaker 16: taken to allow inmates as much freedom and as many
20:43
Speaker 16: choices as is possible given that it's a maximum security environment.
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Speaker 13: With the exception of this place here. I've escaped from
20:53
Speaker 13: every prison I've ever been in my life, and every
20:56
Speaker 13: time I've ever tried to escape, I got away. Unfortunately,
21:00
Speaker 13: every time I got away, I got caught.
21:02
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy six, Robert Bobby Lewis was a marijuana
21:06
Speaker 1: dealer in Florida. Louis shot a man dead, claiming the
21:09
Speaker 1: gangster had threatened to kill him and members of his
21:12
Speaker 1: family unless he was cut in on the drug money.
21:15
Speaker 1: Sentenced to the electric chair, he escaped from Florida's death row,
21:19
Speaker 1: the only man to do so, recaptured. His death sentence
21:23
Speaker 1: was later commuted, and Louis was transferred to oak Park Heights.
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Speaker 13: Within the first twenty four hours that I went to
21:30
Speaker 13: the prison system, I stabbed two people and beat one
21:33
Speaker 13: with a pipe. Two people tried to rape me. Another
21:36
Speaker 13: person tried to take my shoes and my watch from me.
21:40
Speaker 13: I went to war with them.
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Speaker 1: Oak Park Heights has created an environment in which life
21:45
Speaker 1: is much less violent than the prisons He's known.
21:47
Speaker 6: Before, you had hours.
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Speaker 13: He was lucky if you had a whole day in
21:58
Speaker 13: order to decide whether you could what you was gonna
22:03
Speaker 13: be inside prison, whether you was gonna be somebody's boy,
22:06
Speaker 13: whether it was gonna be used, abused, traded, whether you'd
22:09
Speaker 13: ever have any money to spend yourself, whether any possession
22:13
Speaker 13: you'd ever own would be yours, or whether you was
22:15
Speaker 13: gonna get you a knife, a club, a stick and
22:17
Speaker 13: start hurting people. Today, there's almost nothing I can't use
22:25
Speaker 13: after twenty something years of prison as a weapon. I
22:28
Speaker 13: can use any kind of chemical compounds to make any
22:31
Speaker 13: kind of poison, gases or bums. I know what kind
22:34
Speaker 13: of plants grow on a prison yard, what their effects are.
22:38
Speaker 13: I can take a newspaper and run it through you
22:42
Speaker 13: and make a blowgun, a spear, a hatch, and a hammer.
22:45
Speaker 13: Everything is a weapon. Everything in pre prison you have
22:49
Speaker 13: to look at is how can I use this or
22:52
Speaker 13: how can it be used against me.
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Speaker 16: We don't have a problem with the excessive number of
23:03
Speaker 16: shanks or homemade weapons being carried by inmates here. Every
23:07
Speaker 16: time inmates enter or leave an area, they are pat
23:10
Speaker 16: searched and metal detected. We have very rigid tool accountability
23:14
Speaker 16: for our industry programs, and if a tool is missing,
23:17
Speaker 16: we immediately go into a lockdown status where inmates will
23:19
Speaker 16: be locked down in their rooms for three to four
23:22
Speaker 16: days while their rooms are completely searched and the living
23:25
Speaker 16: in the work area is searched.
23:28
Speaker 1: Efficient security systems and highly trained staff who are encouraged
23:32
Speaker 1: to treat inmates with respect keep violence towards officers at
23:35
Speaker 1: a fairly low level. But the architecture exists for the
23:40
Speaker 1: prison to be locked down and turned into a supermax
23:42
Speaker 1: overnight if necessary. The decision to lodge one of America's
23:50
Speaker 1: most violent federal prisoners here is proof of oak Park
23:53
Speaker 1: Heights security. Ron Crowder has killed twice in thirty years.
23:58
Speaker 1: He has innumerable conveytions for violence in prison, or, as
24:02
Speaker 1: he describes it, catching a case.
24:06
Speaker 15: I started doing time in nineteen fifty seven for breaking
24:10
Speaker 15: into a school still in a movie projector. But I
24:16
Speaker 15: really didn't start doing hard time til around nineteen sixty six.
24:24
Speaker 15: First institution that they sent me to was uh Petersburg Reformatory.
24:29
Speaker 15: I made parole when I stayed out about uh three months,
24:34
Speaker 15: and I caught another robbery in manslaughter. It gave me
24:41
Speaker 15: uh fifteen years, and they sent me back to Louisbourg.
24:47
Speaker 6: I caught a case in lewis Burg.
24:50
Speaker 3: Uh.
24:50
Speaker 15: They gave me a salt, locked me up in a hole,
24:55
Speaker 15: and uh they said that I was a management problem,
24:58
Speaker 15: so they sent me to Atlanta Federal PENITENTI I caught
25:02
Speaker 15: another case down there, so they send me to Marin.
25:05
Speaker 15: Marini is the last stop all the bad albus is
25:08
Speaker 15: that you know what I'm saying. I hit a gown
25:11
Speaker 15: of yard and they uh they sent me to the
25:13
Speaker 15: control unit. They gave me thirty six months and then
25:19
Speaker 15: I was out in population about uh about three or
25:24
Speaker 15: four months, and I caught another case. They gave me
25:27
Speaker 15: eight years on that. You know.
25:30
Speaker 1: Crowder is a leader of one of the most violent
25:33
Speaker 1: prison gangs in the federal system, the DC Blacks.
25:37
Speaker 15: The Fairs gave us that title the DC Blacks because
25:41
Speaker 15: we was a bunch of black people from out of
25:44
Speaker 15: DC that we stuck together. They try to turn it into,
25:50
Speaker 15: uh a gang, but it's it's not a gang, you know.
25:53
Speaker 15: It's just a bunch of people that came up together
25:56
Speaker 15: out of the neighborhoods.
25:58
Speaker 6: We hung together. We looked out for one another, and
26:01
Speaker 6: we didn't go for anything. You know.
26:03
Speaker 15: Uh, if you do something to one, you gotta do
26:06
Speaker 15: too all. If you would do something to one of
26:12
Speaker 15: us that's in Lewisburg, well wherever you go, you gonna
26:17
Speaker 15: get taken care of because you violated. You did something
26:21
Speaker 15: to one of us, and and and then and and
26:24
Speaker 15: under any means necessary, we.
26:26
Speaker 6: Would get you.
26:28
Speaker 1: After the prison slaying of a DC Black in nineteen
26:30
Speaker 1: eighty three, Crowder did exactly that.
26:34
Speaker 15: Cadillac was a a homeboy from the same town where
26:37
Speaker 15: I'm from. We came up together, and uh, he had
26:40
Speaker 15: a lot of respect. He was killed by the A b. S.
26:44
Speaker 15: Which is white supremacist crew. He was he w he
26:48
Speaker 15: was hit, He was hit sixty four times with knives.
26:52
Speaker 15: You know, chilling is one thing, but man, when you
26:54
Speaker 15: grab a man and drag him down a tier.
26:57
Speaker 6: So all his people can see that.
27:00
Speaker 15: You know it was disrespect then, you know it was
27:04
Speaker 15: disrespect that was my friend. You know, that was my friend.
27:11
Speaker 15: So I had to do something, you know, I had
27:15
Speaker 15: to do something. I just couldn't ignore that, you know,
27:19
Speaker 15: I couldn't. And I did what I had to do.
27:24
Speaker 15: It caused me my freedom, you know, and I would
27:28
Speaker 15: be in it til I die.
27:32
Speaker 6: And if I had to do it over again, I would,
27:34
Speaker 6: you know.
27:40
Speaker 1: Ron Crowder is strip searched in preparation for a visit.
27:45
Speaker 1: A lifetime spent in prison has left him alone in
27:47
Speaker 1: the world. At Oak Park Heights, he began corresponding with
27:56
Speaker 1: a local woman, ronk No considers married his coma little wife.
28:02
Speaker 6: Yeah. I got a a wife and sem daughters.
28:05
Speaker 15: That uh I got a lot of respect for you know,
28:08
Speaker 15: and it comes up here to see me regular and
28:11
Speaker 15: like I said, I have a lot of love for
28:12
Speaker 15: them kids.
28:13
Speaker 6: You know. So I'm doing pretty much outright. You know, any.
28:18
Speaker 10: Dentures, Ah, okay, alright, hand straight up? How long were
28:25
Speaker 10: you be staying?
28:26
Speaker 17: Uh?
28:28
Speaker 10: Okay, lift your sack separate.
28:32
Speaker 6: Okay, what you go through the metal detector?
28:33
Speaker 3: Please light?
28:38
Speaker 6: You have to take your shoes out.
28:43
Speaker 10: Turn around, lift one foot at a time, wiggle with toes,
28:47
Speaker 10: bend and spread.
28:49
Speaker 17: Alright, and thank you.
29:17
Speaker 15: Wedlfematically the love to you about talking so much.
29:30
Speaker 1: Not every inmate appreciates the life at Oak Park Heights.
29:34
Speaker 18: I was the first person in the Minnesota state to
29:36
Speaker 18: get the new guidelines, which is a thirty year mandatory
29:39
Speaker 18: sentence with the possibility of prol at the end of it.
29:43
Speaker 6: Or that.
29:45
Speaker 1: The half naked body of a young trainee chef was
29:48
Speaker 1: found dumped on a country road. His throat had been cut,
29:51
Speaker 1: his stomach and back had deep gashes. Of six people arrested,
29:55
Speaker 1: Dan Naylor was the only one found guilty of first
29:57
Speaker 1: degree murder.
29:59
Speaker 18: Next thing I know, I'm in trial, and next thing
30:02
Speaker 18: I know, the motive went from he stole some earrings
30:05
Speaker 18: to he was molested children, to he was a cop
30:07
Speaker 18: because it was a satanic ritchel jure I heard that
30:12
Speaker 18: satanic stuff. I was fried.
30:15
Speaker 1: Six years later, Nayla still insists that although he was present,
30:20
Speaker 1: he did not wield the knife.
30:25
Speaker 18: I ain't the same person I was when I was
30:27
Speaker 18: out there. I ain't the same asshole that I was
30:29
Speaker 18: when I was out there. I don't take I don't
30:34
Speaker 18: take the sound of a bird chirping or a dog
30:36
Speaker 18: barking off in the distances for granted anymore, I just can't.
30:42
Speaker 18: I have nothing anymore, so I can't take any little
30:45
Speaker 18: bit for granted.
30:47
Speaker 6: I've got a card that was.
30:48
Speaker 18: Sent to me in jail from my ex fiance at Stacy,
30:50
Speaker 18: but I'll never get rid of it cause I can
30:54
Speaker 18: still smell her on that car. A lot of people
31:00
Speaker 18: in society will just say, uh, poor person. No, not
31:04
Speaker 18: poor person. I don't want society's pity. I want society
31:07
Speaker 18: to wake up and see what's going on and quit
31:10
Speaker 18: believing just disinformation they keep getting. We don't have it
31:14
Speaker 18: as a resort here. Sure that the building may be
31:22
Speaker 18: new and the cells may be cleaner. Well, we ain't
31:27
Speaker 18: got that easy. There's nothing easy about prisons.
31:35
Speaker 6: I know for a fact.
31:36
Speaker 18: If I would be released a day back into society
31:39
Speaker 18: and they told me I had to live on the
31:40
Speaker 18: streets and be a bum, I say, when do we leave.
31:49
Speaker 16: At Oak Park Heights. We have two extremes. You've got
31:52
Speaker 16: a choice. You can live in general population, accept a job,
31:56
Speaker 16: and you're gonna basically have a lot of freedom within
31:58
Speaker 16: a small space between seven in the morning and ten
32:01
Speaker 16: pm at night. The other choice, if you don't obey
32:05
Speaker 16: the rules is we have a very rigid, punitive segregation unit.
32:11
Speaker 9: Here.
32:11
Speaker 16: Inmates are only allowed out of the room one hour
32:13
Speaker 16: per day and offered very few amenities, very few clothing items,
32:19
Speaker 16: very very little reading material, things like that. One key
32:27
Speaker 16: element to our success has been that we keep the
32:30
Speaker 16: difference between general population and segregation extreme. And if you're
32:34
Speaker 16: an inmate, it's looking at many, many years his personal
32:38
Speaker 16: life being spent, and you've made that decision to try
32:41
Speaker 16: to accomplish some constructive goals. The choice is obvious.
33:06
Speaker 15: Old park House. I mean it's so kicked back. It's
33:12
Speaker 15: nothing going on here. I mean, it's nothing that you
33:14
Speaker 15: can get into. I never been in the penitentiary like
33:18
Speaker 15: this before. It's strange for me. I mean, you can
33:21
Speaker 15: go to school, you can lock and unlock your own
33:24
Speaker 15: door when you want to. You around what fifty two
33:29
Speaker 15: people every day, so it's just like a close knit family,
33:36
Speaker 15: you know what I'm saying. You can lay your head
33:39
Speaker 15: down here and go to sleep. You know, you ain't
33:42
Speaker 15: gotta worry about getting whacked. This is a nice place
33:47
Speaker 15: where you can retire. I mean, you know, just get
33:50
Speaker 15: away from everything. It's right here.
33:55
Speaker 3: Wrong.
33:55
Speaker 1: Crowder knows that one day he may have to return
33:58
Speaker 1: to the federal system baron itself.
34:01
Speaker 8: You know.
34:02
Speaker 15: It's just like being in the bell of the beast,
34:05
Speaker 15: you know, because that's a pit.
34:06
Speaker 6: It's the snake pit, you know, And if you're scrown,
34:09
Speaker 6: you're gonna survive. But if you're weak, you're gonna tear
34:12
Speaker 6: you down.
34:13
Speaker 15: I didn't seen a lot of good dudes break down
34:16
Speaker 15: under that type of pressure, you know, paranoid, schipsophrenic thinking people, that's.
34:23
Speaker 6: It's poising them.
34:25
Speaker 15: Thinking, people's plotting against them. If they told me I
34:30
Speaker 15: had to go back to Maryon tomorrow, I mean, married
34:33
Speaker 15: is the whey I got to go back.
34:34
Speaker 6: I'm ready to go. I just had to put that
34:37
Speaker 6: face back on and I'm gone, you know what I'm saying.
34:43
Speaker 15: But unfortunate for me, I won't be going back to Maryon,
34:46
Speaker 15: you know.
34:47
Speaker 6: I will be going to Colorado.
34:49
Speaker 3: You know.
34:50
Speaker 15: You know, they didn't have enough of me and Marion,
34:53
Speaker 15: you know. So my next stop is Colorado Supermax.
35:03
Speaker 1: It's known as the Alcatraz of the Rockies. The new
35:06
Speaker 1: sixty six million dollar federal supermacs at Florence Colorado, the
35:11
Speaker 1: most feared prison in the United States. One of the
35:17
Speaker 1: first men to be moved here from Marianne was Oscar
35:19
Speaker 1: Lopez Rivera.
35:21
Speaker 9: I have far.
35:22
Speaker 14: Spent fourteen years in prison.
35:26
Speaker 9: I was convicted of our seditious conspiracy to overthrow the
35:30
Speaker 9: government of the United States in Puerto Rico by the
35:32
Speaker 9: use of force.
35:34
Speaker 1: Rivera was convicted of playing a leading part in the
35:37
Speaker 1: bombing of government on Wall Street targets during a seventies
35:41
Speaker 1: terror campaign against the US presence in Puerto Rico. To
35:45
Speaker 1: many poor Puerto Ricans, and especially his niece Lodes, he's
35:49
Speaker 1: a symbol of liberation.
35:54
Speaker 4: Oscars in prison basically for the struggle to free Puerto Rico,
35:58
Speaker 4: and he was the most wanted manned by the FBI
36:01
Speaker 4: from nineteen seventy six to eighty one. The judge with
36:07
Speaker 4: Oscar said, I wish I had the tools to justify
36:10
Speaker 4: a death penalty on you, but I will give you
36:12
Speaker 4: fifty five years full term survey.
36:15
Speaker 1: A later conviction for attempting to escape added twenty years
36:18
Speaker 1: the Rivaria's sentence.
36:20
Speaker 4: Oscar won't be released until the year two thousand forty six.
36:25
Speaker 4: Uh he's not eligible.
36:27
Speaker 10: For parole.
36:39
Speaker 19: Administrative Maximum Facility eighty X has been opened approximately seven months.
36:45
Speaker 19: We received inmates in November and we have two hundred
36:49
Speaker 19: and forty seven inmates presently in the institution.
36:56
Speaker 9: Prisident is very inhuman is very human icing. But when
37:01
Speaker 9: you are in a control environment, then you begin to
37:05
Speaker 9: experience the barbarity of prison. To sear to burn your spirit,
37:13
Speaker 9: to take away your humanity. Here everything is cemented steel.
37:22
Speaker 9: You can a smell the earth, you can see a
37:25
Speaker 9: blade of grass, you cannot.
37:26
Speaker 14: See a tree.
37:27
Speaker 9: How can you correct an individual by placing that individual
37:31
Speaker 9: in a cell for twenty two twenty three hours.
37:33
Speaker 1: A day despite his crimes. Rivera speaks about control unit prisons.
37:39
Speaker 1: With all the inside of a human being condemned to
37:41
Speaker 1: live in one.
37:47
Speaker 9: You can no longer be creative because you are constantly
37:50
Speaker 9: in one single spot in a seven by nine feet cell.
37:58
Speaker 9: Your total You become totally dependent on the jailer, on
38:02
Speaker 9: the staff. You cannot even say, well, I'm going to
38:06
Speaker 9: go and reach for food is given to you.
38:11
Speaker 14: In the same environment you do everything.
38:13
Speaker 9: You defecate because you got your toilet there. You're taking
38:16
Speaker 9: food in the same place, so there begins to also
38:21
Speaker 9: rob you of your humanity and strip you of your humanity.
38:31
Speaker 19: The security procedures and designs here are specifically for the
38:39
Speaker 19: maximum security inmates. Everything that an inmate would need is
38:45
Speaker 19: enclosed within that inmate cell, showers, toilet facilities, things of
38:49
Speaker 19: that nature.
38:53
Speaker 1: To prevent weapon manufacturing. Sell furniture is made of poor
38:57
Speaker 1: concrete when there's an angle to prevent prisoners seeing the
39:01
Speaker 1: mountains outside. The cell is escape proof, but at a price.
39:12
Speaker 4: When I saw Oscar, and he had already been two
39:15
Speaker 4: weeks in this lockdown, in this hermetically sealed doors with
39:21
Speaker 4: no ventilation, no sunlight, and there was someone who had
39:26
Speaker 4: been medically diagnosed as insane and Miriam and this man
39:32
Speaker 4: with two steel doors hermetically sealed Oscar. Could hear him
39:38
Speaker 4: hitting the wall, He could hear him screaming. He could
39:42
Speaker 4: hear him yelling for help in this cell.
39:47
Speaker 1: A civilized society may ask itself whether control unit prisons
39:52
Speaker 1: like Florence and Westville are just tombs for the living dead.
39:57
Speaker 9: I was strip searching the cell, our strip search in
40:02
Speaker 9: the visiting room by the same people who had strip
40:05
Speaker 9: searched me, who had been holding me and watching me
40:08
Speaker 9: all the way down to the visiting room. Once the
40:12
Speaker 9: visit was over, our strip search again in the visiting room,
40:15
Speaker 9: and our strip search again in the cell.
40:19
Speaker 4: And we were going to be seeing each other in
40:22
Speaker 4: a two and a half inch fiberglass sealed wall between
40:29
Speaker 4: us on a phone. Why would a human being strip
40:35
Speaker 4: another human being and poke because they poked oscar to
40:40
Speaker 4: see if he were what the hell was he going
40:43
Speaker 4: to carry from his cell to the visiting room.
40:47
Speaker 1: A spokesman said, ADX policy is the strip search a
40:51
Speaker 1: prisoner once on leaving a housing unit and once on
40:53
Speaker 1: his return.
40:56
Speaker 19: Contraband materials can be passed between inmates and and visitors,
41:03
Speaker 19: and this is to ensure that uh that does not
41:06
Speaker 19: take place.
41:09
Speaker 9: The first time I saw my granddaughter, she was probably
41:13
Speaker 9: five months old. Nothing would have been greater than to
41:16
Speaker 9: be able to touch her, to grab her out. My
41:19
Speaker 9: my daughter would put her on the window so I
41:21
Speaker 9: could uh and she would st uh almost try to reach.
41:24
Speaker 14: At that early age, when she.
41:33
Speaker 9: Touched the glass, the whole her whole uh Uh, all
41:36
Speaker 9: the features in her face change, uh because she was
41:39
Speaker 9: expecting to talk to talk to me and touch me,
41:42
Speaker 9: and and so the glass prevented that.
41:44
Speaker 14: Yeah, it was uh uh to look at her face.
41:47
Speaker 9: It was a very horrifying experience of one that that
41:50
Speaker 9: was extremely sad, one that was extremely uh.
41:53
Speaker 14: You know when when you almost break down in tears
41:55
Speaker 14: and you choke.
41:59
Speaker 4: To I went from my visit with Oscar, with his
42:02
Speaker 4: granddaughter who he had not seen in two and a
42:05
Speaker 4: half years, and that urgency of helplessness God lost. When
42:12
Speaker 4: Garina said I can I can feel you. There was
42:19
Speaker 4: no glass anymore, even what the government thought they can
42:26
Speaker 4: break us by that glass. And seeing that four year
42:31
Speaker 4: old girl play and she played for the forty five
42:35
Speaker 4: minutes we had to visit. She played and they played,
42:40
Speaker 4: and there was no pain in that glass. There was joy.
42:48
Speaker 4: So we broke the glass.
43:04
Speaker 18: When you take a person and put him in a
43:06
Speaker 18: setting where you dehumanize him to I don't want that
43:12
Speaker 18: person as my neighbor when he gets out. And I'm
43:14
Speaker 18: a convict sitting in this place. The only thing that
43:17
Speaker 18: stops me from being dehumanized is myself.
43:22
Speaker 13: If these prisoners here was to go down and go
43:24
Speaker 13: through the reception center in the state of Florida. When
43:28
Speaker 13: they brought 'em back and let 'em off the bus,
43:30
Speaker 13: they looked like hostages coming back to the United States.
43:33
Speaker 13: They would run up and hug the prison. It'd be
43:35
Speaker 13: so happy to be back here.
43:38
Speaker 8: This place doesn't change people. I mean initially, I think
43:40
Speaker 8: it was meant to be a a type of psychological reconditioning,
43:45
Speaker 8: make place so terrible that you would never wanna come back. Essentially,
43:50
Speaker 8: this place is just a warehousing facility. In my opinion,
43:57
Speaker 8: ten years are gonna look back and say, we have
43:59
Speaker 8: two million people in prison and nothing's changed.
44:04
Speaker 15: This education thing is one of the best things that
44:06
Speaker 15: they got here, because you know, like you got a
44:08
Speaker 15: lot of people here that's slow in certain fields, they
44:12
Speaker 15: can better the self. Heel, that's what I'm doing. I'm
44:15
Speaker 15: bettering myself and I'm damned. Are fifty years old. But
44:19
Speaker 15: you're never too old and learned, you know, never too
44:22
Speaker 15: old to learn.
44:25
Speaker 2: People says, presents reform you. In my estimation they really doing.
44:29
Speaker 2: What happens is you grow old, you're out of steam.
44:34
Speaker 2: You can't whip nobody, much less than the police. So
44:37
Speaker 2: the best thing is Coolidge. People laughing at me, says, boy,
44:42
Speaker 2: maybe they sure changed. You know.
44:44
Speaker 6: I grew up, got old.
44:46
Speaker 2: I was fifty nine years of age when I got
44:48
Speaker 2: out eleven work, after spending thirty five years locked up
44:52
Speaker 2: more than half of my life. And I just took
44:54
Speaker 2: it easy. When I got out and I got to working,
44:57
Speaker 2: and things got better and better, and I says, don't
45:00
Speaker 2: take no chances. Now you got more to lose your gain.
45:04
Speaker 2: Years before I had nothing to lose and everything the gain.
45:09
Speaker 2: I was just gambling with life.
45:17
Speaker 1: The Russian writer Fyodor Dostoevsky, author of Crime and Punishment,
45:21
Speaker 1: said the degree of civilization in a society can be
45:25
Speaker 1: judged by entering its prisons. Today, the United States locks
45:30
Speaker 1: up more of its citizens than any other nation except Russia.
45:36
Speaker 1: If prison really works as a cure for crime, this
45:39
Speaker 1: should be the safest country on earth.