announcement on social media after he welcomed home three americans freed by north korea as a gesture of goodwill. argentina has begun formal talks with the i.m.f. about receiving financial support to stabilize its economy its finance minister has met the i.m.f. chief christine lagarde at the phones headquarters in washington to discuss the deal despite reform efforts the country has found itself facing a falling currency high debt and soaring levels of inflation you are right up to date with all top stories up next it's fold lines i'm back and often i was thirty minutes of well the news c.n.n. but i. tried to actually follow it psychology. from the very beginning until the very end the trade in human flesh is big business . and wealthy western nations are implicated how can a girl from the main you know who wait till i'm so not know how to randomly now i must be you know i can ask why many sex slaves episode two years of slavery

a twenty first century medieval on al-jazeera. you know what i mean there are a herd thomas hodgson has been the sheriff for bristol county massachusetts for over twenty years to get through the area oh yeah and then such a barrier. he's responsible for the county jails overseeing more than twelve hundred inmates not a. good. little but it. would take a building to show you the classroom we have people who if they're from classes when i first came here they had t.v.'s in the cells the inmates could smoke basically would get almost as much food as they were. and i believe that that that was the

formula for failure. i believe that taking the tv's away taking away the weights which they had. giving them with sound attritional meals but not as much as you want. and making sure they're focused on the opportunity to go to programs was the way to go. shave hutchison may look like any other law enforcement officer but sheriffs or politicians elected by voters. with the office comes considerable power. which includes how they run their chelles already in. jail should never be a country club and anyone who spent time in our facilities would tell you you know the third this thing from a country club and we know our approach is working you can be one hundred miles or even fifty miles apart between two different jails and your experience will completely different and be completely based on who is the sheriff in that county.

there are over three thousand sheriffs across the country and there's a wide spectrum in how they do their job. hutchins' tough on crime approach may play well in elections but it raises concerns by critics who are worried about the living conditions for it and makes sure of hodgson has done many things to humiliate prisoners and to deprive them of basic comforts putting them in chain gangs out on the street cramming them into small cells or having them sleep on the floor charging five dollars a day for the privilege of staying in his facility. many sheriffs don't have term limits and once through elected there are very few checks on their power however in most cases no one can fire them. in this episode of fault lines we look at what can happen when the power of a sheriff goes unchecked. they have this huge amount of autonomy huge amount of independents. huge amount of authority they make decisions that really

dramatically affect people's lives including life and death questions that always. breen's problems when you have a lot of authority and not a lot of accountability. really thomas hussian is the longest serving sheriff in massachusetts but in recent years he's made news for the high suicide rate and the shelves human behavioral units where. there's could more control over the inmates we also sometimes will conduct what we call eyeball watches here you have an officer sitting watching that person the if they feel that there is a potential risk for so little doesn't mean it's show they're going to commit suicide but they may have suicidal ideations when we're told that we are working

with mental health put them on a watch word officers just watches that the whole time. for this officers assigned to sit in this chair and just monitor the person that's inside that cell for their own safety. mental health watch is so punitive at bristol county it's worse than solitary confinement you're put in a cell with a what's called a fergie or a suicide smock and no clothing watched constantly by a corrections officer who's period got you through a window that's it twenty here in that cell twenty four seven that kind of response to suicidal feelings is what stops people from reporting it to begin with bonnie to reload as a lawyer with prisoners legal services in boston organization is suing sheriff for housing mentally ill inmates and solitary confinement when you have serious mental illness you should not be in solitary confinement for more than a brief period of time. and what we say in our lawsuit is they don't have the

procedures in place to make sure that doesn't happen. the suit also alleges that prisoners in bristol county jails are not getting adequate mental health treatment . we met a group of former inmates to ask them about their time in bristol county jail some of them are still in the criminal justice system and don't want to show their faces for fear of retribution if your mom asked how many guys here actually attempted suicide while they were in that jail wow how many guys here thought about suicide while they were in that jail. everyone how many how many of you guys were on meds when you went in there everyone was on meds when you went in there when you went in there were you able to stay on your your meds if they get the meds you needed where the no no no no nothing no no if you feel yourself slipping emotionally or mentally and you need mental health help what's the process what do you do to get it right

right we have to go you have to feel this sick call the sports that i think they have. one or two or three days to get back you but sometimes i used to go weeks and weeks and i have to keep putting it in like one every day every day until they see me and so i was just about ready to hang get out. jochen for take was in jail in bristol county in two thousand and thirteen. he suffers from bipolar disorder. i don't know how this is just a been. you know you know bone tears in a soup kitchen. in jail been severely depressed joke him says he reached out for help while i wrote down the ladder i wrote down not to help department that i had been feeling really really suicidal on. and that i was

going to go through with it. three days later i didn't hand nothing back from them and then on down i i tried to commit suicide again they told me that they came and took me down they told me that they used those electric things to shock you back to life. and then. about to help the family realize just guy is serious he's really trying to commit suicide. at least eight people have committed suicide in bristol county jail since two thousand and fifteen. twice as many as other jails in massachusetts and three times the national average. we spoke to a woman whose partner of twenty four years killed himself while in bristol county

jail. she didn't want to shore face on camera. so this was actually have a photo that we used at the service. because it was one of my favorite. both of my. just because it looks so grainy. michael ray was an inmate in bristol county awaiting trial in two thousand and fifteen he suffered from bipolar disorder and had substance abuse issues and i have thousands of letters not to lie i mean i have boxes and boxes of letters so i just grabbed a few he wrote to his partner about conditions in the jail telling her that his requests for help work nordau he said you have to tell people this isn't right. and that's just one i mean he says it is. and. in this one. he tells me this is dated october nineteenth two thousand and fifteen and he said i think i'm losing my mind and don't know what to do anymore no one asks about me or

answers my slips for help i'm just talking. this is my only option of some kind of therapy is writing you i don't want to do. i'm sorry i don't want to die but i feel like i'm dying from the inside already i love you so much and i don't want to leave you. this was again about the mental health he's seeing no one and has put in three more slips so. and this was dated december fourth so he had been almost two months. since he had quite enough left that literally sells like for months he's requesting it with the help support he's not getting it correct the one thing he says in all of his letters says that he wanted help and it never came on saturday june tenth two thousand and seventeen michael hanged himself in a cell michael is ultimately responsible for michael's actions i would never say

that. tommy hodgson is the one what i would say is i don't believe that that facility is ever going to change their practices as long as their leader is. mr hudson because i think that he really thinks that he does a great job. and that to me is so frightening and so sad. sure of hodgson said that no cases of suicide or attempted suicide were related to a lack of medical or mental health treatment. after the death of michael reddy share of hearts in order to internal investigation into the suicides of seven inmates between two thousand and fifteen and two thousand and seventeen the report found that all medical mental health and security standards were met i don't think that an internal review is a substitute for oversight there's no watchdog that's saying let's look at these

practices in the counties and it's a real vacuum and self reporting can substitute for that you seem like a results oriented guy. at the end of the day who should be held accountable for a suicide rate that this that high and that different than other jails in this day and across the nation if you could identify something. that would say that our system. is failed. that that in fact is the cause or that we just don't have. the level of interest in taking care of the mental health case or whatever it is look i'm responsible for everything happens here on the shelf so i am all to believe responsible for everything if you can't identify what it is at what point do you got to step aside because you have the duty of care at that duty of care isn't being taken care of and you don't get why who gets to step in and say we just need a new team here. well the put it all to believe the citizens do. i think

it's a problem when law enforcement policies and incarceration are governed only by popular opinion prisoners are protected by the constitution from that any kind of. popular impulse to unfairly punish i have never seen clear evidence that a sheriff faced serious electoral repercussions for the treatment of inmates in their jails you know sheriffs and hold an incredible amount of power and are allowed to run the jails in the way that they see fit and we see a lot of abuses and then we don't necessarily see those abuses show up in the next campaign cycle. in large parts of america sheriffs are the only form of law enforcement into everything from morning to chills to patrolling the streets. but they also have

a dark history. here in the south sheriff played a violent role. in the jim crow era and in suppressing civil rights activists in the one nine hundred sixty s. . to this day shares are still a remarkably homogenous group they are ninety five percent male and ninety nine percent white. in two thousand and eight the parish of iberia in southern louisiana elected a new sheriff again for the he was a retired state trooper named lewis akhil saturday lewis echo sheer audacity you know we keep blaming the bottom or the top people on kevin broussard and whitney lee grew up here where we see a truck and a lot of blacks. because no business is coming here when you get to like. street that's when the whites out of town starts share facal campaign on

a platform of reform but soon after his election he stripped away any internal oversight within the department. during his tenure ten of his deputies would plead guilty to federal crimes. in two thousand and ten stablished a special unit to deal with what he saw as problem areas. it was called the impact here and that was designed for waste impact was designed to telegraph the naval when embedded st it was best get out st jude isn't there is was a way to get three everybody knew about it all the way to america it was free you go in because if you go on a bus if you have a car you know if you stop and search it was known that there were tuesdays and thursdays this weekend down with me and you would get off to st jude there is a coming becoming shares deputies would later testify to routinely beating up in making false arrest in the west end. but the abuses of power didn't stop there.

as whitney leave found out when he was awaiting trial in ny period parish jail in two thousand and fourteen it started out simple enough they'd come in and they were going to do the searches and strip searching kind of a shakedown type they claim burgess says when he leaves lawyer and has at least a dozen pending lawsuits against sure faculty that really has had some pretty problems and medical they pulled him out of medical to come to be part of this shakedown sato was say oh they want i got a good lover you feed me so i'll give it all to you know assess the way you feel a day ok so actually you are but then the officers started commanding them to get on their needs. and want to be gross and put your ass in the air for your girlfriend put your face down like you're praying for allah and you know just abuse general abuse but when he's problem was when he was down in these positions he literally was having trouble breathing everybody got on up told us put up a sock and get out that massacre breed so i didn't have agree with free ride stuff

would have showed a rabble he sowed you will you go get outside told us it now and i'm not you know so he grabbed my shirt and took out his listicle he hit me like six seven times already knew they became more and more frustrated and whitney didn't just crumble and cry beg for mercy and the. more than we need not fighting back not resisting mage simply standing there calm which is just quite frankly remarkable as they are beating him. it infuriated so to the point they got so frustrated they backed up with a shotgun and shot a big b. beanbag bag round at him could be ten feet away the pain had to be enormous when you least sued di pieri a parish sheriff's office over the incident his case has recently been settled out a bit to a lot of things you know it it kind of hurt you could i have shot it but i have

never been a shadow it took me to go to jail having a shot as the by the iberia parish sheriff's office started to come out the f.b.i. in the civil rights division at the department of justice started investigating so essentially what happened is you had you've had everything from false arrest severe beatings in the jail to officers lying under oath for convictions to them what he dogs loose on prisoners in beating prisoners. i mean it's almost every crime that you can think of you know lying about evidence planting evidence literally beating people who are enemies of acol. after the department of justice investigated sheriff baca was charged with ordering the beating of the inmates in the jail that conspiring to cover it up. his trial took place in the fall of two thousand and sixteen it was moved to another town three hours away. produces and was one of the inmates in the chill that day in two

thousand and eleven. he's awaiting trial on a misdemeanor charge now he tells us he can no longer live with any sense of peace . skansen just for the. you know i'm afraid of you stopping. off oh i don't know what up off that would have been going to be what his motive is you know i can't trust him. and i fear he would kill me shoot me beat me do something that happened to me two times a right it's not going to happen up there. but it happened to me and i bury parish i would be in a chapel and this in the jail in the jail beaten down my neck adult and . this is security camera footage from the jails recreation yard that day. the guards were doing a shakedown taking inmates out of their cells and searching for contraband. curtis says someone near him insulted the guards the deputies thought the comic came from

him lose out who walks in the door. amos now this is business that apple tells of to the tedium. a make there's also my bank angle comes the dog in my face but the dog goes on and. that's curtis it sure facal feet. a dog see a comic. see that he knew it dog. gets in a chapel. and cuffed me again. and got him against untie in the cell come in he comes in and comes in i run current don't you give the man. from what you saw me get on you in the right manner right you got there and we're doing that for you guys but tom program m m m m m m m that man come on man what you doing there bro and then. i would. leave it in the ground.

on the ground and this is where they may have to have a nut they may do this. so you're not going to tell me oh no no boom it with it's all right here the man with a piece of our name is a man named bum and like may come or been brought in as we once were. if. any any any. good but. measured fifth but not in main fear pro. german live feed the beat me up in the air are likely to be perfected i mean here on the mr mean or the lowest crime a person could commit they. were got to produce mother dorothy you said that he had

been beaten until she says it took her two days to find we get the warden on the phone choose the morning i'll call back and then i asked spoto point. and he told me missiles and i don't know who given you this information but nothing happened to curtis curtis is fine as it but i want to come over to helena see him for myself one no you can't come over here because it's against the end of this demand and you know you can't just see i'm a sit well look like i'm half the boy a little bit further than you bought of allah maybe allah have later he called me back he said missiles and we're going to take him to the hospital silage me take him to the hospital i see is that bad bad he said well he got a few scrapes this in there but we're going to take him to the hospital just to have them checked though. it was two days before curtis was taken to the hospital.

and had a fractured. broken. fractured rear. fracture of my kneecap from a baton aspic. while they take you to the chair because i sleep sound like. no god you want to put anybody you know cameras cameras. home that. is dog off in the jail so they could take you in there from there it's a high spot to do. the head is so planned out so good man and it was doing that was doing on a relative doing in the office in the not very impressed with tell me that. a cup want to be to a bar. with no way. a cup. if i have it in its head as a dent in thing going on in my house who are refused to call the police but. refuse

akhil told them to do it apple directed us to do it this way no other way way this. and that was you know in the studio a show of apia parrot i don't understand how certain are you that apple ordered the beating her tail. to deal with meat hardly it was the car in the. during a trial of former deputy sheriff been in the cell testified verifying the details of curtis a story he also said that acol ordered the beatings. sheriff baca was tried before a mostly white jury he was acquitted of all charges after the trial he blamed his deputies. want to get the disease did. was it open newman a rule through the iberia parish sheriff's office who went beyond the law. and you

know innocent people. when they drug the innocent people in stouffer drug dealers to go. that is totally opposite of what i am in one of them. he declined our interview requests. would ten of ackles deputies behind bars for their crimes the city of new iberia has voted to replace the sheriff's department with a new police force. lou sacco continues on a sheriff of the parish and is still in charge of the jail. while we were filming in southern louisiana five more sheriff's deputies from nearby towns were arrested for beating prisoners. it's not shocking anyone there's no ripple effect there's no way there's no outrage i mean think about you're down here for just a number of days and two different departments within sixty miles of here five deputies arrested for abusing prisoners. i mean i would think in another part of

the country and maybe a bigger media market or whatever but i'm it made the news don't get me wrong but i don't i don't know for people that slow down for. even years after the assault in the jail curtis was and is still struggling to deal with the trauma and i live like that i am living i want a job i go to the vault as i want to move is you know have a baby i mean i know baby girl. i want to i don't go away i want to know their day to day because of fear of the bullies of oh i want to know if she isn't in trouble that she can't call the authorities head me i want to live they did not meet. me up real bad man. a.

come on the old u.s. forces in afghanistan. determined to defeat the taliban and die. but can he succeed where others have failed. people in power games exclusive access to the man who completes trump. to withdraw from america's longest war. the general on. its seventy years since the expulsion of palestinians from their homes and the creation of israel al-jazeera examines what has changed in the past seven decades on both sides of this conflict and what the future holds join us on may the fifteenth.