Prison Documentary: Maximum Security Inside Walpole State Prison HD
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00:00In Massachusetts, Walpole State Prison is the end of the line.
00:10It houses 700 of the state's most violent, unmanageable offenders.
00:15300 corrections officers come to work here every day.
00:20Their job is to impose order onto an environment that constantly threatens to spin out of control.
00:36This security checkpoint is the only way in or out.
00:40Since it was opened in 1956, no one has ever escaped from Walpole.
00:45Okay, two cameras.
00:46You guys will carry it.
00:47Do you know that aluminum foil is contraband?
00:49And I'm going to stamp your inner right wrist, just in case you guys get lost in there.
00:50I don't think you want to spend the night, right?
00:51What do they make out of aluminum foil?
00:52I mean, just about anything.
00:53You can make little bombs out of it.
00:54They use matches.
00:55Anything with a spark on it.
00:56It's not allowed in the institution.
00:57How do you make a bomb out of aluminum foil?
00:58If you have 24 hours on your side, you can think of a lot of different things.
00:59You can make a bomb out of aluminum foil.
01:00You can make a bomb out of aluminum foil.
01:01You can make a bomb out of aluminum foil.
01:02We can come to work one morning and not go home, and certainly that plays heavily on
01:26your mind sometimes.
01:28We've had people quit the first day that they come in.
01:31Some people, it takes them a little bit longer, but you know within a short period of time
01:34whether this is for you or not.
01:42We came here to follow an 11-member team known officially as the Inter-Perimeter Security
01:48Unit, or IPS.
01:49They are the police in a world composed entirely of the state's most hardened criminals.
01:55Same thing.
01:56Okay, just step up there.
01:58What gets you in the whirlpool is repetitive misbehavior at other institutions.
02:03We have inmates serving sentences in here ranging from drug convictions to multiple
02:09homicides and it runs the entire gamut.
02:12It's not just based on your crime.
02:14The majority of it is based on your behavior.
02:25Within hours, one gang member has slashed another.
02:47The IPS Security Unit has recovered the weapon, a handmade steel shank.
03:06Last year alone, 98 inmates were seriously assaulted at Walpole, and 260 weapons were
03:12found.
03:13Where are they getting that from, Jimmy?
03:14Rubino Rivera Salt.
03:16If this is the way society wants to run their prisons in an orderly fashion, we have to
03:21investigate crimes within the prison.
03:23We're not going to call the local police to come in here and do that.
03:26It's our jurisdiction.
03:27It's our responsibility to do that.
03:29The metal comes down and it folds right back up again on the other side.
03:33I'm pulling that off, snapping it off.
03:35Front still looks the same, but the back edge is gone.
03:37My brain is mangled.
03:43Through the process of interrogation, the Security Unit hopes to gain information about
03:47other homemade weapons hidden within the cell block.
03:50Hey, if he kicks something in later on, we can do something for him.
03:55Yeah.
03:56Maybe.
03:57Yeah.
03:58We'll guarantee he's out, naturally.
03:59Yeah, he says he's all done.
04:00For informational purposes, his information line's done.
04:01Okay.
04:02Because if he goes back in there, he's a fucking hero.
04:03You know what I'm saying?
04:04Now, I think the next one may be shaking the whole block.
04:05I'm waiting for that one next.
04:06You know it's coming.
04:07Yeah.
04:08You know it's coming.
04:09That's all right.
04:10But we got to be able to, I don't know, we got to be able to go in there and take our
04:17time.
04:18Really take our time.
04:19Right.
04:20And just go through every little thing that's in there.
04:22The interrogation proves successful, and Lieutenant Grassi orders a surprise shakedown of the
04:27cell block known as Plymouth 2.
04:29Kenny, what's your 20 right now?
04:32Just give him your name.
04:3545, 44, 43.
04:36Let's go.
04:37All right.
04:38All set.
04:39Go, go, go.
04:40All right.
04:41That's the block.
04:42These guys in.
04:43Alex, I hear all these toilets flushing.
04:44Does that mean anything?
04:45Yeah.
04:46They're probably flushing things they're not supposed to have in their cells.
04:47I don't know.
04:48Or the paperwork.
04:49Maybe their weapons.
04:50Shakedowns are the logistical nightmare.
04:51The goal is to empty all 45 cells while keeping gang members from attacking one another.
04:52We've got to be real careful in this block, because there's five sectors, and you've got
04:53to really be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:54You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:55You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:56You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:57You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:58You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
04:59You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:00You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:01You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:02You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:03You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:04You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:05You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:06You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:07You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:08You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:09You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:10You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:11You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:12You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:13You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:14You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:15You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:16You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:17You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:18You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:19You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:20You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:21You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:22You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:23You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:24You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:25You've got to be careful of who you're dealing with.
05:27You know what they look like?
05:28Take those.
05:29Yeah, take them.
05:30This line of business is kind of paramilitary.
05:32I like to look at it as paramilitary as opposed to being like a police department.
05:41My father was in the service, so I'm an army brat.
05:44So I think that brought me a long way because he was kind of a squared away person.
05:48He liked to have his uniform squared away and his boots shined.
05:51So you learn from that.
05:56I've been having a problem with these eyeglasses because they're inside these ear pieces, if that's what they are.
06:03There's a sharp metal thing that's already sharpened to a point,
06:06and these guys have been stripping off the plastic and using these as weapons.
06:09Let's go see what this guy's up to.
06:12Yeah, stand over in the slop sink.
06:14Why?
06:15Because you can't be what he's doing.
06:17Right in the slop sink.
06:19All right?
06:21What's up with these?
06:22These inmates try to be intimidating.
06:24So you kind of call their bluff.
06:27You have to know when they're not bluffing, of course,
06:29but you have to meet force with force, and we will always come out the victor.
06:34You got a prescription for these?
06:36I use them just for fucking around.
06:38Yeah?
06:39Yeah.
06:40Okay.
06:41We'll be checking that out.
06:43I take, I don't give.
06:45The guys in the second tier, if you notice, I've been constantly looking up at them.
06:49If they start going astray or if they're fucking doing something silly,
06:52I'm going to be right on it.
06:55Keo Van or Van Keo.
06:57See if he's supposed to have some glasses because we're missing those.
07:00Oh, we're definitely removing those.
07:01Where's the two ends?
07:02We don't know.
07:03We threw them in the trash.
07:04He's not going to be able to get a new pair.
07:06That's correct.
07:07He says he needs them for fucking around, not even reading.
07:12A little retrieving line here, fellas.
07:14Danny!
07:15What is that?
07:16It's a retrieving line.
07:18When they get locked in, they can put a weight on the end of it
07:22and send things around to anybody in the block.
07:24They throw it over the tier and the next guy will pass it down.
07:27It's a way of getting things around in the block.
07:31I want to check this toothbrush out because it looks like it may be one of the ones we're looking for.
07:35He's got this wrapped around pretty good here.
07:37Hey, excuse me.
07:38Norm, there was another question I had too.
07:40Van Keo, K-E-O.
07:43Can we check and see if he's got a current prescription on eyeglasses?
07:49Hmm.
07:57Oh, a stinger.
07:59This is a heating device.
08:01What they do is they plug this into the wall socket and it's two pieces of metal.
08:06Usually, as you can see, it's an old nail clipper.
08:08As long as you keep them separated by a piece of cardboard or a piece of plastic,
08:12you can plug this into the wall and this will start heating up cherry red hot.
08:16They put it in a cup of water and it boils the water.
08:19See, the tough part about that is that if it gets wicked hot like you would have on top of your stove,
08:25you can throw it at the staff.
08:27Got your stinger.
08:31Last year, 24 officers, or nearly 10 percent of the workforce,
08:36were violently assaulted by inmates, often during routine operations like this.
08:41Somebody's got to watch your back.
08:43I mean, you can't be doing it.
08:45You've got your eye in that camera right there.
08:47Some of these guys, I'm telling you, you turn your back and you get lax and you're walking to tears.
08:52Someone can reach out and do something silly to you.
08:54Even if it's not life-threatening, you still don't want to be disrespected like that.
08:58You've got to watch that camera guy, man.
09:00He's going to get jumped. He's going to get stabbed.
09:02Who's that?
09:03The camera guy.
09:07Close one nine.
09:13Nine.
09:24All right, listen up.
09:26Nine block. Lucio. Cox. Cahill.
09:31Diver.
09:32Yeah.
09:33One F1. Fernandez.
09:35Yeah.
09:37Milo Cejeta. DDU.
09:41This morning, the security unit is trying to head off a racial conflict.
09:46Left unchecked, this is the sort of activity that can set off riots.
09:52Sergeant Steve Kennedy and Alex Rodriguez are assigned to a surveillance operation to monitor the inmates.
10:02From an observation gallery, Alex serves as the eyes, watching the inmates through one-way mirrored glass.
10:10We picked up some information yesterday that a possible racial problem was happening.
10:16There was a large number of blacks and a large number of whites.
10:19Had a discussion. From there, they dispersed.
10:22And what we're doing today is just keeping an eye on what we call the heavies.
10:26Guys who pretty much have a lot of word or say on the block.
10:30He's trying to get a racial thing going between the whites and the blacks.
10:36Yeah, he's a white guy.
10:37He's an older white guy, maybe in his mid-40s, trying to get these younger kids up and coming to join him.
10:44Walpole is an outdated, maze-like facility.
10:48But the IPS security unit has managed to turn the ventilation shafts and inner corridors into hidden listening corridors.
10:56They're aware that we do come down here and monitor them.
10:58But if they hear our radio going or if they hear us creak on one of the grates, what they'll do is they'll yell,
11:06IPS behind the block, so that way it warns the other inmates in the unit that we're back there.
11:12But as long as we're quiet, they should have no indications that we're back there.
11:16Be careful there with your flashlight, because that window right there is not a one-way mirror.
11:21They can see you.
11:26We're going to go up to the second floor now.
11:29We're going to go up to the second floor now.
11:31What cells do we have here?
11:56We head over to 33.
12:02Did you copy that?
12:05I'm here right now, but I can't make it out.
12:20Did you get anything out of that?
12:24What cell do you have, man?
12:26The whole crew is in cell 34.
12:29But they're in front of the cell, so I don't know what you can pick up.
12:33They can see you out there.
12:44Back there, you wouldn't believe what you heard.
12:47You have one guy come over to another guy,
12:49Hey, hey John, I'm looking to get a weapon, you know, what do you got?
12:53Well, I know a guy who's got a 12-inch piece of steel.
12:56I know another guy who's got a pick.
12:58Oh, okay, all right, great, what do you want for it?
13:01Talking about who's making the homebrew tonight,
13:04and what time they're going to get together and split it up.
13:09Whoa, you all right?
13:10Walpole will always be Walpole.
13:14They're stuck with us, and we're stuck with them.
13:16Until further notice, anyway.
13:22Alex Rodriguez has particular first-hand knowledge about gangs,
13:25from having been raised in the inner city.
13:30There are so many gang members here,
13:32they're kept isolated in four designated cell blocks
13:35to prevent them from gaining new recruits.
13:38Yeah, we're going to straighten that out.
13:40Prison gangs are highly organized,
13:42making them the biggest threat to security.
13:45The mere presence of our cameras seems to have set them off.
13:48Okay, so what's the problem?
13:50Nobody's face is going to be on.
13:52I know, that's not the point though, you know what I'm saying?
13:54That's not up to me.
13:55I just follow orders, man.
13:56We're going to get them out of here.
13:59What's going on?
14:00Huh?
14:01What's going on?
14:02Yeah, they're not happy.
14:03So it'd probably be better to do it from outside.
14:05Okay.
14:06Hey, they didn't want you in that block.
14:07No, they didn't want us in there.
14:13Basically, they're just giving us a heads-up, you know.
14:18Hopefully we have that respect, we can relate with each other.
14:21It should be no biggie though.
14:23Who would they most be angry at?
14:26Me.
14:27Why?
14:29Because I'm the gang officer and I should have known better,
14:31and that's how they play it.
14:33Dealing with gangs involves unique risks.
14:36Their power can extend far beyond the prison walls.
14:40About a year and a half ago,
14:42I had an incident where a number of guys showed up in front of my house,
14:48threatened me,
14:50basically told me to stop doing what I'm doing.
14:53But nothing assaultive, no physical action occurred.
14:58They walked away, I walked away.
15:01So it was a big thing.
15:03Sometimes you've got to be very careful on how you relate with these guys.
15:06If they want to find out where you live, they have no problem doing it.
15:14Threats from inmates come in many forms.
15:17This afternoon, the security unit has intercepted
15:20an intimidating letter to a state prosecutor.
15:23He wrote a letter to the district attorney's office.
15:25The state police called me.
15:27It's a real nice letter.
15:29Dear Mr. O'Reilly, parentheses, Mr. Dead Man,
15:33I hope that when you get this letter that you're dead.
15:36I'm going to have my people put a bomb in your car.
15:38I'll also have a bomb in your house and yours.
15:41How's your wife doing?
15:43I'm sure you don't want anything to happen to her.
15:46He also says, P.S., get back to me, motherfucker,
15:49because you'll die real soon, so count your blessings.
15:52Kenny, I'd like you to take a look at this here.
15:55Threats and what have you.
15:57We need somebody to go down and take him out and have a word with him.
16:00Okay.
16:01On the streets, do you have a situation with the Middlesex district attorney's office?
16:07Yeah, yeah, I've got a problem with them.
16:09Did you write them any letters?
16:11I wrote them letters.
16:12Recently?
16:14About two weeks ago, something like that.
16:16You're going to have to start seeking some better avenues than this.
16:18You send out things to these people in these high places.
16:21It's going to come back and haunt you, buddy.
16:23And you just came out of a situation over the weekend
16:25where you got involved with the officer down in New England doing the same damn thing.
16:31Yeah, now, he threatened an officer yesterday too?
16:33He threw juice in the officer's face and did threaten him with bodily harm and death.
16:40You're not going to go too far like that, you know what I mean?
16:42Yeah.
16:43Whatever you're doing time for, what are you doing time for?
16:46For manslaughter, for supposedly killing my uncle.
16:51You know, I've got a deep problem.
16:53You know, I've got, like, a personality problem.
16:55One minute I be a thugster, the next minute I be a cry-a-little, you know,
16:59a shy-a-little baby type person.
17:02Okay.
17:03I can't think of anything else.
17:04Can you walk Officer Rivera?
17:06Dave, we're all set.
17:08I've been here 16 years, and everybody in here is a bad guy.
17:12An inmate, yeah, get under their skin.
17:14If they know more about you than what meets the eye here at your workplace,
17:17they're going to utilize that to their advantage.
17:19Sure.
17:20No question about that.
17:28We hear stories that inmates, you know, spit in the food.
17:32There's stories they squirted semen in the food.
17:37Anything, you know, something falls on the floor, they put it back in.
17:40The worst possible thing you can think someone can do to food, they've probably done it.
17:46So that's why a lot of, you see a lot of the old times,
17:49will never, never touch it or bring their own food.
17:52I eat it.
17:54You're joking.
17:56♪♪♪
18:09Here's my question.
18:10Great.
18:11Is Charlie paying you because he wants to go to jail?
18:14Charlie's paying because he wants to go to jail.
18:16Now, you tell Charlie that you're in charge of this here.
18:19Right.
18:20And they're living here, it's recreation.
18:23However, he does not dictate to you when he goes to yard.
18:26He'll be allowed to go to yard when you decide he's to go out.
18:30All right.
18:31Charlie Chase is considered the most violent and unmanageable inmate at Walpole.
18:37Originally convicted of armed robbery and murder,
18:40he has racked up a record 132 disciplinary offenses behind bars,
18:45earning him the longest sentence ever in the DDU.
18:49That's right.
18:51Get him down.
18:52Get him down.
18:53As far as Charlie's concerned, he's stripped all the time.
18:56His cell is shaken down because he's a major escape risk
18:59as well as a threat to the security of the institution.
19:02He's caught all the time with makeshift contraband.
19:05He's caught with weapons.
19:07He's got a swastika painted right here, Steve.
19:10He's got one on his trap door, too.
19:13He's very disruptive down here.
19:15I don't think there's been one consistent month that he's behaved himself,
19:18so his time down here isn't counting, and that goes on a month-to-month basis.
19:22Do you think he's crazy?
19:24Crazy? He tries to come off like that,
19:26but theoretically I don't think he's crazy, no.
19:32Given his often bizarre behavior,
19:34Charlie's lawyers question whether solitary confinement is in fact driving him insane.
19:40Along with 10 other DDU inmates,
19:42Charlie is named in a class-action lawsuit
19:45claiming that the DDU employs cruel and unusual punishment.
19:49All this that you're witnessing is a conspiracy to keep a good man down.
19:53That's all it is.
19:55He's a clown.
19:59Now it's not the right opinion, but he is.
20:04How long have you been in here, Charlie?
20:06How long I've been in here?
20:08Six years this year.
20:11When are you getting out?
20:13I don't know. I got another nine years left.
20:16Yeah, they took a lot of good time from me, you know.
20:19Like I said earlier, it's like a conspiracy has set me up to leave me here, you know.
20:24Okay. Thank you, Charlie.
20:30We've had our problems down here.
20:32A lot of it's been with forced moves in the cells,
20:35inmates refusing to come out of their cells, refusing to exit their cells.
20:39A team would be put together wearing protective gear and try to get him out.
20:44Some DDU inmates are considered so dangerous
20:48that it can require as many as six officers in full body armor
20:52to extract them from their cells.
20:54Get ready! Get ready to go!
20:56Go, go, go, go, go!
20:58Come on!
21:04Come on!
21:10This particular move involves inmate Charlie Chase.
21:14For legal reasons, such incidents are always videotaped by prison officials.
21:22You accept it if you violate rules and regulations that you're going to be punished.
21:27But then there's a fine line between what's punishment and what's torture.
21:32You know, a guy that's behaving in an odd manner
21:36because of being psychologically unbalanced
21:39is a lot different than what I knowingly did.
21:42I escaped. I mean, I knowingly knew what I was doing.
21:46But an inmate that's having a psychotic episode
21:51and as a consequence of that behavior is put into DDU,
21:55something's very wrong with that.
21:57You know, that I have a problem dealing with.
22:01Why don't you go home tomorrow morning? What are you, wrapping up?
22:05What's it been like for you?
22:18If we put microwaves and refrigerators and washer and dryers in their cells,
22:24they'd find something else to complain about.
22:30I mean, you can see their living conditions are not that bad.
22:40Some of the most dangerous inmates here show serious symptoms of mental illness.
22:46And for the security unit, dealing with these individuals can be intensely frustrating.
22:51Well, this inmate sent a letter to one of the mental health workers.
22:55He's been sending letters to everybody.
22:58So I'm just going to go through it and see what we've got here.
23:02A lot of it is just nonsense stuff.
23:05Aggravation type things.
23:09And there's a nice little package of something here.
23:14I have no clue what it is.
23:18I'm starting to get an aroma of it now and it smells like human regurgitation.
23:23You know how many letters I've gone through of yours over the last couple of months
23:27with feces in them and everything else in them?
23:31I mean, I don't really want to open it up because the letter stinks.
23:34And I'll probably stink up this whole room when I unseal this bag.
23:37So what, did you, was a handwriting analysis expert, you know,
23:43hired to detect that that was my handwriting?
23:46It's not needed.
23:48So are you saying that there's no possible way that another inmate could have afforded that, you know?
23:54No, I'm just asking you if you wrote it.
23:56I'm not here to critique the contents of the letter.
24:01I don't think there's a need to send it to a lab or to have it analyzed.
24:04I'm asking you, did you write the letter?
24:07Makes you feel like you want to do something to the guy to make it permanently stop.
24:11You know, deal with it directly in different ways.
24:14But it makes you feel pretty good.
24:17It makes you feel pretty disgusted.
24:19Do we have to screen every single piece of mail that you generate?
24:25Does it have to come to that? I hope it doesn't.
24:29It'd just be tedious for me, you know what I mean?
24:31I don't feel like checking your mail every single day.
24:35I have no comment.
24:38Well, it's about the end of this. Come on.
24:42This individual also threw a nice big cup full of human feces on the clergyman.
24:48As the clergyman was standing by his cell trying to help him out,
24:51the inmate proceeded to stab him in his arm and then throw a big fluffernutter container
24:55full of human excrement all over the clergyman.
24:59We'll deal with it. We'll deal with it.
25:01In fact, for that last escapade with the religious person, I think that's going to get him some DDU time.
25:11In the main section of Walpole Prison, a major disturbance has broken out in one of the cell blocks.
25:17We're denied permission to film during the incident
25:20and are only now allowed briefly to see its aftermath.
25:23We're going to go down with the lieutenant.
25:25We're going to just make a round in the unit, see how things are going,
25:28take a peek in the cells, pull on the doors, just to get a general feel for what's going on.
25:33When you're doing something like that, maybe a connoisseur will stop you and they'll let you know what's up,
25:37give you a little feedback as to what's going on in that unit.
25:41How'd you end up in this thing?
25:45I see you come home from breakfast, right?
25:47How do you get caught up in that stuff?
25:49This occurred because the inmates that were put in here were previously in a regular population block.
25:55They had yard privileges, they had chow hall privileges,
26:00and I guess it's their way of protesting and being returned to higher custody.
26:04We'll just go ahead and monitor, monitor for any more ringleaders.
26:09If ringleaders have to come out, they'll be taken out and brought to say.
26:12So we'll wait for the word from the top.
26:15How often does this kind of thing happen?
26:17Not very often anymore. Not very often anymore.
26:23Later, Lieutenant Robert McGinnis shows some of the younger officers a videotape of what Walpole used to be like.
26:30This was March 6, 1981.
26:33It was a very long day.
26:36It started at 7 o'clock in the morning with what we were going to consider routine moves to segregation of, I think, five or six inmates.
26:46I was at cell 15 down the end.
26:57I believe it was an inmate on the third tier that was refusing to come out.
27:02Ever seen this tape?
27:03No, I have never seen this tape.
27:06They're going in his cell. He's fighting.
27:09He's actually stabbed the captain.
27:12You can see the blood.
27:13Where were you while this was going on?
27:15I'm one of those four or so officers that went down there.
27:18I was at the other end of the tier.
27:21We'd gone down, and what happens at this point is the TAC members up in the gallery are introducing gas into the unit.
27:29At this point, we've introduced some officers with shotguns.
27:34He's got a gas gun?
27:35No, shotgun.
27:37I just think it was the strong will of the department to run its facilities and not allow inmates to run its facilities.
27:45And I think that concept holds true today, that we run the institutions, not the inmates.
27:54They always say people in law enforcement have the highest divorce rate and this and that,
27:58and it always seems to be that they let themselves get stressed out.
28:04They take everything in.
28:06Being around inmates all the time, they're not here because they're the nicest people in society.
28:13Prison life in general, they're not here because they're the nicest people in society.
28:21Prison life in general is depressing.
28:28How long are you in here for?
28:30Prison for 27 years.
28:32What do you do?
28:34Second-degree murder.
28:38Not too long ago, there was an inmate murdered in here, as in other places of the prison.
28:44When you think, you know, it's not a dangerous place because you look around and you see, well, everyone's working.
28:49This particular incident happened first thing in the morning.
28:52They arrived to work, and by the end of the day, I mean, one was dead.
28:58So that's the kind of things that transpire, right in this area here.
29:02One of those things.
29:05There have been staff members over the years that have turned into alcoholics as a result of this job.
29:12We've had people commit suicide in this business.
29:16And I really think a lot of it is because they don't do something to relieve their stress outside of work.
29:25Here, that alarm is always in the back of your head.
29:27When's it going to go off? What do I do if the alarm goes off? What's my job?
29:31If everybody does their little job, then we should be okay.
29:34It could be anywhere from a homicide to just one inmate yelling, punching another inmate.
29:41That the officer felt the need to freeze the place up.
29:44That stress level is always there, yes.
29:46That's probably why our life expectancy is an average of 55 years.
30:05Nobody in!
30:09Today at Walpole State Prison, inmate Luis Vega is going home.
30:14In just 30 minutes, he will leave solitary confinement in the DDU,
30:19be given a $50 check, and go directly back into society.
30:23How long has it been, Luis?
30:25How long has it been? Five years, seven months.
30:28How does it feel now?
30:30It feels good, you know.
30:33That's how it should feel, you know, after leaving these walls.
30:38I think that when an inmate finishes his sentence and commits some sort of heinous crime,
30:45within a short period of time, there's a hue and cry that, well, he never should have been released.
30:50Well, he had to have been released. He finished his sentence.
30:53And, you know, do we rehabilitate people?
30:57People want to have to change themselves.
30:59Most of the people that we see in our system are just career criminals,
31:05and doing time is just part of that process.
31:08Most of the people that we see in our system are just career criminals,
31:13and doing time is just part of that business.
31:16It's a temporary setback.
31:20I can't say I'm never coming back, because where I come from, you know, it ain't cookies and milk.
31:29So, I'm going back home, back to the same place.
31:34I'm not going to deny where I'm from, and I ain't going to run from it, either.
31:50They're seeing you, and they're looking at you the way you conduct yourself,
31:55and they may try to emulate that.
31:57They may try to resent that, your authority figure.
32:01I don't know.
32:02Believe it or not, you know, it's like with anyone you meet or anything you do,
32:06you leave something behind, no matter where you go or what you do.
32:09You leave something behind with somebody. I believe that, you know.
32:12Maybe you can leave a little something good that when they do get back out into society,
32:17you know, maybe you've done a little good.
32:20It's not too often that you feel like you've done some good.
32:31I'm not going to stay here until I'm growing old, you know what I mean?
32:37You're surrounded by concrete and bars, and all you're hearing all day is slamming doors and metal hitting metal.
32:44You know, I mean, it gets to you, you know.
32:48I've seen some people retire, and two months down the road, drop dead of a heart attack.
32:54It's all thrown away, you know.
32:57It's all thrown away, you know, and that's not what I want to do.
33:05Your plans when you get out of here in 20 years?
33:08Oh, 20 years, I couldn't even tell you.
33:12I'm hoping that I can have my kids in school, you know.
33:17That's pretty much, I'm thinking of them instead of me.
33:20As long as I'm living and happy, I'm all set, pretty much.
33:24This is our seniority list.
33:26When you make it to the front page, it's big on the seniority list.
33:30Right now, Kenny and Johnny are on the second page, and I'm at the...
33:34Well, I might have snuck into the second page.
33:37These guys up at the top, boy, they're sitting free.
33:40We wish we were them.
33:42They're dead in six months.
33:44I wish I was 30 years, 27, 25, 26, 25.
33:49You know, once they leave, they're all done.
33:52Don't ask what their mental capacity is after 25 years.
33:56They just want to stay so they can show off the front page.
34:00I'll still be here.