>>now we are inside the prison. [man talking over pa]

>>hi. >>hi. >>corcoran has the bed space to hold about 2900 inmates, but you can see how that system's sort of been stretched. there are 4900 inmates here, so they've had to make use of the extra space. this is actually a gymnasium. but as you can see, they're using it to house inmates. ♪ these are lower level inmates, inmates from level 1 and 2 which means that they're not the serious violent offenders. how about this guy right here? where you from? >>i'm from southern california san bernardino. >>what are you in here for? >>assault. >>assault. how long are you in for? >>i'm going home on tuesday. >>you're on a six-month violation for violating your

parole? >>yes. original charge was sales of marijuana. trafficking marijuana. >>can you show us where you sleep, your bunk? >>yeah, sure. come on. >>thanks a lot. >>yeah. this is my food. eat a lot of rice. my girlfriend, she sent me this, just for fun. >>the worst case scenario, survival guide. have you learned any tips from that? >>this is must-have in prison. teach you a lot of good stuff. >>you can see the dorm rules of the gym. things like no banging on the doors, use your own phone time make the bed area when not in use. but there are also the rules the prisoners have amongst themselves and those fall along racial lines. there is self-segregating and as you can see there's a table of black inmates and over here a table of white inmates and those

two just don't mix. can i sit here? >>how many times have you been in? >>this is my first term. >>okay. >>i've been in county jails, though, in and out, in and out in and out. this is my first prison term. >>your first prison term. how's it been? >>it's not like people make it out to be. it's really not all that bad. it's calm, it's cool. but it ain't something that i really want to come back to because you know, it can get bad. one minute, everything could be just like this, and the next minute it could just pop off. say like he were to get into a fight, it's mandatory that i go over there and i get in it. if i don't, my people will get me in the corner after it's all done. if one jumps, you all jump and that's how it is. it sucks, but that's the way that it is. >>and your people meaning the whites? >>right. exactly. >>so you got to help your---. >>and you have no choice in the matter. and that's the way the politics are. >>so there's no way that you guys would head on over to that other table and mix with the african american inmates.

>>no, no, no. you can get stabbed for that. honestly. that's going... >>by them and your own people. >>by our own people. their people are different than ours. let's say for instance i came here and i'm new and they hand me a soup or whatever. for me accepting open food like off their own tray, i get back here, i get beat up by my own people. >>so we were just over there talking to those white guys. talking about the racial rules that go on here. can you guys tell us a little about that? >>i don't know nothing about it? >>you don't know anything about the rules? >>what they do, we got our own. we got a whole different program than they do

>>riot break out. >>everybody has to join in right. >>yeah everybody. >>so it there's a fight that breaks out between you and the mexicans, you guys have to get involved. you have to defend your group. >>yeah. >>prison politics is what they call it. (laura) prison politics are the rules by which the various groups in prison live and fight with other groups. politics are so powerful in prison that the california department of corrections has to take race, ethnicity and geographic origin into account when housing inmates. right here you have a board of all the inmates who are housed in this facility. and they color code it. so you have red for mexicans blacks, white for whites. and these are their housing numbers. so for example in this cell area room 222, you're going to

have two mexicans here. and you can see how they're segregated along racial lines for security purposes because there's so much racial tension. you'll see the blacks are housed together, the mexicans, the others, that could be asian or native american. and this is it. ♪ right here you can see the cards on the doors. it helps identify the inmates by race. over here you two blue little signs that means there are two black inmates. these two red ones means there's two hispanics. over here you have a white and hispanic inmate. >>and the yellow one is for other. >>can we walk up here maybe?

i'm laura. >>frank. >>frank, nice to meet you. >>jt. >>jt, nice to meet you. how are you guys doing? >>doing all right. >>what are you up to? >>chillin. getting ready to do the laundry. >>you do your laundry? >>everyday, yeah. >>it's drying right there with the fan? >>no, it's wet. we're getting ready to do it in the sink. >>where are you guys from? >>castroville, monterey county. >>how long have you been here? >>five years. >>going on... how many-- >>got a double life sentence. >>double life sentence. wow! >>what are you in here for? >>nothing good. kinda of struck out. smoking them methamphetamines. tore me up, you know. ate me up, spit me out. >>where you doing drugs here in prison too? >>yeah i was bringing them in. >>you were bringing them in and dealing it? >>before other places. main line. >>how easy is it to get it? >>it's easy. >>what are the different ways you'd bring it in?

>>swallowing it or put it in your kiester, put it in your private. >>do you guys mind if we took a look inside? so this is what it's like inside a cell. this cell is six and half by 12 feet. you have two inmates here. these are their bunks. you have a toilet right here. and you know because the space is so tight, it's very organized with all their things. nice to talk to you. [ applause ] >> when someone stumbles across the show, it usually doesn't end well. >> stephanie: it ended better do. all right. just a truce. all right.

45 minutes -- it was a wash. 45 minutes after the hour. right back on "the stephanie miller show." in your jeep grand cherokee. and when you do, you'll be grateful for the adaptive cruise control that automatically adjusts your speed when approaching slower traffic. and for the blind spot monitoring that helps remind you that the highway might not be as desolate... ...as you thought. ♪ ♪ [ man ] ever year, sophia and i use the points we earn with our citi thankyou card for a relaxing vacation. ♪ ♪ sometimes, we go for a ride in the park. maybe do a little sightseeing. or, get some fresh air. but this summer, we used our thankyou points

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hershey's chocolate syrup. stir up a smile. (vo) then you missed dennis kucinich on the war room. >> we have a lot of good people system that's bad. the system that's for sale. the system that defeats good people who want to bring about a better society. (vo) james carville on viewpoint. >> i can't beleive this, we never lose street fights to community organizers. what is going on? (laura) at the california state prison-- corcoran, the inmates like the inmates in other california prisons, operate by their own set of rules that they

call prison politics. and the politics can get violent. corcoran averages two assaults per day. what crimes are most common? >>batteries, assaults, stabbings. >>this is a razor. >>they call that a tomahawk. they attach two razors at the end of the handle right there, and that really does a lot of damage. >>what are the odds that at any given moment there's a weapon out on the yard? >>about a 90 percent chance. when they're out there on the yard, they'll know where that weapon is, in case something goes down, they'll go out there and get it and take care of what they need to take care of. all the yards right now, i'll bet you, have weapons on them. if something goes down then they'll get it and do what they got to do. [woman over pa]

>>captain field, you said that this is a level 4 yard. what does that mean? level 4? >>level 4 is a higher security level than say, a level 1 inmate. these inmates, when they go through the classification process, they're given a classification score which tells us risk levels. >>what sort of things do you look out for, in trying to keep it secure? >>one of the biggest things we look out for is grouping. there is a policy where you don't allow any more than five inmates to get together on the yard at one time. some of the things, like i said, that we would look for that would be a red flag for us, if we have a group of blacks on one side, a group of whites on another, a group of hispanics over in another location, large groups-- that tells us that there's a potential problem out there that we need to find out what's going on. >>is it violent out here? >>it's what you make of it. if you're involved in the politics and you're involved with the drugs, it's going to be

violent. if you're just here doing your time, and you ain't messing around with other people's program, and you ain't getting involved in other people's business, it's pretty easy to go by. if you bump into somebody, it's all about, you say excuse me. you don't disrespect nobody. you don't call nobody punks. you don't put your hands on nobody in the wrong way. you just use respect with anybody. >>what if i were to disrespect you? >>if you did, i wouldn't trip on it. [laughs] (man) she weighs 95 pounds. >>i'm so offended. >>we like what we call space. they understand space from custody which this is good space, " 'cause you can't hurt me." but being closer, he can literally take you out, just with a simple shank 'cause we don't pat them down. >>i'm sorry sabrina. every time, i want to get

closer. (man) what's the problem? >>sabrina's telling me that i'm getting a little too close to the inmates when i'm talking to them, and it becomes a security risk. >>there's a lot of hepatitis lot of different diseases. we don't who has tested, who hasn't. we're in prison. some of these guys are in for maybe murdering women. >>yep. the reason we were allowed to wander in the prison yard full of inmates convicted of violent crimes, was up on top of the walls around us. up there, you can see the officer in the guard tower, and she is just keeping watch on these yards and making sure that nothing breaks out. before we came out here, sabrina made sure that we adhered to a dress code. we weren't allowed to wear denim, or grey or anything that kind of matches a denim color, and that's so that we don't look like the inmates. you don't want to look like an inmate because if violence

breaks out, the guards in the towers have rifles and are authorized to shoot and what they'll aim for is anyone standing dressed like a prisoner. >>can we walk towards that shot caller? >>yeah lets go. he's just going to disappear but lets go. >>they'll get up and walk. >>see mitch? watch. >>what happened? >>well, there are couple of guys out there in the yard, and anytime we get too close, they immediately get up and walk away. so they obviously don't want to be interviewed. >>we can go over there, but if they start to walk away, that means.... >>what's your name? >>young >>i'm laura. how long have you been? >>incarcerated? about 15 years. >>how long are you going to be in? >>about another two. >>mind if i ask what you're in here for? >>second-degree murder. >>how do you protect yourself? >>stay to yourself. mind your business.

(man) so politics are dangerous? >>anything could be dangerous. hopefully that's it. is that all? >>[laughing] i think so. >>you're about 6'4", 260, about one percent body fat and he's scared of you. >>people tell me i'm kind of intimidating. >>well, you know. scared of the questions. not scared of you but scared of the questions. (laura) and that's how powerful prison politics can be. moments after we left the yard we noticed that something was going down. see they're just all lying down on the ground, and that's what they're supposed to do when there's an alarm.

an inmate who had started a fight was taken away in handcuffs. once again, the politics of prison had turned violent. and according to prison officials, most of the inmates don't even know the other prisoners who set the rules. >>i would say a high percentage of the inmate population has never seen the guys who are influencing and running these general populations. they've never seen the guy they just heard of the guy. (laura) that's because the ones who make the rules are the leaders of secret prison gangs who are locked up in isolation units. >>the people who call the shots and make the rules, we'll never see them because they're locked down, level 4, the shu or wherever but still orders are coming from there. >>so you're basically taking rules from people you've never even seen, people who are locked up in solitary. is that how it works? >>basically, yeah. things have been passed down for

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>>the gavin newsom show is a search engine for solutions, and that's the focus. we want to focus on solutions and ways of bringing people together. that's the only way we're going to solve the world's great vexing problems. >>(narrator) the gavin newsom show friday at 11 eastern/8 pacific on current tv.

(laura) the state of california has 33 prisons housing 165,000 inmates. prison officials have one set of rules for the inmates but the inmates have their own rules. these rules are dictated and enforced by seven prison gangs. how much violence in the prison is due to the prison gangs, and orders from the gang members? >>i would say all of it. i would say. >>how dangerous is it in the prisons because of these prison gangs? >>death. it's dangerous. these gang members, who run these yards, who run these institutions, by the snap of a finger, you can be contracted for death. (laura) the prison gangs are the mexican mafia, the aryan brotherhood, nuestra familia nazi low riders, the northern structure, the texas syndicate and the black guerrilla family. but unlike street gangs, prison gangs don't even admit that they

exist and don't let the tens of thousands of inmates that they control talk about them either. >>the mexican mafia, if you ask any inmate, what's the mexican mafia, they're going to tell you, "what are you talking about, i never even heard of that." >>does that go for all the other prison gangs in addition to the mexican mafia? >>the majority of them, yes. (laura) so the best way to get information is by going to what's known as a drop-out yard. so you can see that there are more people out on this yard and that's because this yard houses gang drop-outs. >>you're going to see blacks and whites talking. you'll see 'em, they play basketball in a mixed forum. i mean, you can see 'em, even out on the handball court, you see a hispanic and a black. so you'll see them talking more than you would on any other yard. (laura) but even here, it can be hard to get a conversation going. do you mind if we talk with you?

>>i do. >>you do? okay, thanks. >>naw, i'm all right. >>thank you. (man) you're chasing everyone around the yard, eh? (laura) finally we had some luck. >>what kind of insight are you guys looking for? >>what's that? >>what kind of insight are you guys looking for? >>life. >>prison life in general? >>where you from? >>from san jose. >>any gang affiliation? >>gang affiliation used to be pretty heavy. the gang affiliation here there's none as you know. this particular yard here if for people who want to change for the better. there's nothing but deceit and deception in gang affiliation. >>who did you used to affiliate

with? >>the nf, nuestra familia. i was a two-star general. i first got affiliated with the nf in 1984, in old folsom. i did a lot of groundwork for them, a lot of soldiering for them. it was all in vain. i became a two-star general and sat in pelican bay shu for nine-and-a-half years. accomplished zero. >>what was the appeal back then? what was the appeal? >>to conquer and run every drug trade, including prostitution, in prison. because as you know, there's he-shes here. it was a struggle to organize not only the struggle inside here, but also outside. having your foot soldiers going collecting, extortion, prostitution, robberies, any means to come up with money. (laura) one way to come up with

money is to sell drugs. any drug that's available on the streets can also be found in prison. and over here, we have... >>some of the drugs that we've confiscated. >>marijuana. methamphetamine. cocaine. heroin. tar heroin. so how do they get this stuff in? >>visitors, normally. that's the number one source of getting drugs into the institution, is through visiting. the visitors will secret it on their person, or in their person, and when they come on to the visiting room, take it out hand it off, and the inmate will either swallow it or keister it to bring it back to the yard. that's why it's in balloons. >>right here, you can see the photos. most of them are women, and that's because they were people who were visiting inmates here and they were busted because they were bringing in some sort of contraband. someone was busted for bringing in heroin, meth, meth, heroin, heroin, marijuana, meth, the list just goes on and on.

and, as a result, all these people also ended up in prison. >>before, there was a cause. if i got out, when i paroled in '86, in '88 when i paroled, my people looked after me. they gave me $10,000. they gave me a pound of whatever type of drug i wanted and a car. that was the brotherhood. that was the carnalismo but that was then. now i'm going to do my best to talk you out of your address and go and visit your wife while that's the cause now. it's worthless. >>so what do you want to ask? >>where you from maurice? >>i'm from norco, california. >>norco. >>riverside. >>how long you been here? >>seven years. >>at corcoran?

>>i been in corcoran in the shu for three years, and i just got on this yard. >>when did you come out here? >>a month ago. >>so you were in solitary for three straight years. >>for seven years. >>for seven years. what was it like in there? >>it was pretty bad. >>what got you into solitary? >>gangs. i was in a gang. >>which one? >>nlr. >>nazi low rider. >>and aryan brotherhood. i was affiliated with both. >>and then you dropped out? >>yes. i gave all that stuff up. i'm going home in a couple of months. >>congratulations. >>what was it like being in it? >>being in a gang? >>yeah. >>well. can you see my face? >>what happened? >>i got stab wounds all over my body? >>can you show me? >>yeah. >>right there. wow. >>did that all happen here in

prison? (man) when you were in a gang, was most of the violence from your gang or from other gangs. >>both, both. we get into it with the blacks mexicans. sometimes the mexicans and the whites, the southern mexicans and the whites collaborate to get the blacks and the norteños. it comes from all areas you know, different people fighting against each other. >>what do you have to do to rise in the ranks? >>well, you got to make a name for yourself. i stabbed people like people stabbed me so i deserved what i got. fortunately i never killed anybody. that's on my conscience too, i feel bad about that. i'm 37 years old now and i'm done with all this stuff. >>it's also a big decision. >>big decision. >>now, are you threatened by

dropping out? >>yeah. i'm wanted by everybody. >>you have this, it's what's being call, roll call. it's being sent out of a lockup unit or ad seg, or what's known as the hole. this right here is a list of names of inmate in good standings with the gang. this is a list of white inmates. these inmates here are loyal to and sympathize with the prison politics set forth by the aryan brotherhood. they'll sharpen the pen filler and when it's real fine then they're able to use the pen and write real small letters.

>>all my racial love and respect. >>that's a white inmate writing that. >>want to see this? this stupid stuff. (man) like you're a white guy, you show up in prison, someone comes up to you and goes, these are the rules? >>yeah. pretty much. yeah. you got a set of rules that you got to go by. and if you cross that line then you're in trouble. >>what are some of those rules? >>oh, you don't drink after blacks. you can't even sit and eat with them. >>this yard is different though. it's like people are intermixing. >>yeah. there's no colors out here. >>will you sit with a black guy >>yeah, i don't have no problems. i'm done with all that stuff. i look at a guy how he treats me and if he acts like a man then i got no problem with him. i don't care what color he is. i'm not into none of that stuff.

(laura) at the end of the day, i met teddy. he's an ex-follower of the most notorious prison gang, the mexican mafia, or eme, which controls latino inmates from southern california. >>so if you're mexican, and you're in prison, you automatically--. >>have to be affiliated. pretty much. >>so how violent is it out on the other side, on the other yards? >>when i was in solano, i was in like nine different riots. and that's another reason that i chose, you know, because i went there i only had like four years, but i ended up doing-- instead of only doing two i ended up doing all four of it. just for getting in riots with different races, blacks, stuff like that. i went to the hole like three or four times. i'd being laying in the hole like you know, an extra six months added on my sentence, just laying there thinking, what the hell did i do this for, for some people i don't even know? >>like leaders you never even met. >>yeah, stuff like that. for a cause like i didn't even know what i was doing. but in order to just go with the

flow, that's what i'd be doing you know. >>and this was for eme. >>for eme. yeah. like i remember one time, i was asked to remove this guy from the yard because there was a riot on the yard, and he didn't involve himself in it. he wasn't there to back up the homies and stuff, so they came to me and they were like, "hey ted, can you handle this and don't trip, because the homies are going to much appreciate it and look out for you." i was like, all right. i got to do what i go to do, right? i'll just go do it. so i went to the yard, and i beat his ass, and i took him to the hole, and he got his little whooping in there and stuff like that was like his punishment. >>who's in control? you or them? >>oh, they're in control. it's a catch-up game. because action's faster than reaction. we can only react to what they do. (laura) drop-outs are segregated from the rest of the inmates for their own protection. but prison gangs are powerful because they also have influence on the streets.

>>are you in danger because you dropped out? >>i don't know. yeah. >>what will happen if you run into your old gang out, on the outside. >>oh, they'll try to kill me. yeah, they'll definitely try to kill me. >>fate leads them who will. those who won't, it drags. that's what's happening here. we're all dragging on one leg right now. we're all crippled. we're all handicapped right now. but for those of us like myself who got a date, what we do with it is yet to be seen. my hope is to better my life and stay free and die free. i don't want no riches, i just want to die free. >>i jump out of my skin at people when i'm upset.

do you share the sense of outrage that they're doing this, this corruption based on corruption based on corruption. >>i think that's an understatement, eliot. >> i'm not prone to understatement, so explain to me why that is. i think the mob learned from wall st., not vice versa. the chill of peppermint. the rich dark chocolate.

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what percentage of the crimes occur because of gangs? >>oh, 95 percent. most everybody in here is part of a gang. not everybody, but most. i mean that's how you survive. and of course, they prey on the weak, and if you don't belong to a faction or a gang, then you're going to get picked on.

so it would be in their best interests to. >>what group is the most powerful? >>can i say? this institution is ran by the mexican mafia. so they have a lot of power in here. of course, they side with the aryan brotherhood and we have some of those here also. us, pelican bay, and tehachapi house all the prison gang members. the street gangs are run by the fellows in the back, the prison gang members. >>"guys in the back" is a polite way of referring to guys locked in solitary confinement in the shu? >>yeah. (laura) i just don't want them to get too unruly. (man) let's do it really fast. they can see us, though. (laura) i know. i think people are going to start stripping or something. uhm. over here, you can see that up in cages. that's because this is what's known as the shu, the security housing unit. this is for the most violent offenders. people don't get stuck in these

isolation units because of what they do on the streets they get stuck in here because of violent acts they've committed inside prison. it's amazing because we've been hearing about the power structure that goes on in the prison. people will be answering orders that come from the top. and the top means guys who are locked up here, these guys who are totally locked up in isolation. the mexican mafia, nuestra familia, texas syndicate, aryan brotherhood, nazi low riders black guerilla family these are the prison gangs that control what happens to the prison and the prison community and the leaders are, in these cages. california has 33 prisons, but only three shus to isolate prison gang leaders once you have to wonder how can these people hold so much power when they're locked up in these isolation units. and what we've been told is that there are ways to do

everything-- you can pass messages, they have telephone calls with family members, they get to meet with family members. and those messages that they send get trickled down into the larger prison community and even onto the streets. ♪ we're heading out to these isolation units to see if we can talk to some of the inmates, but we've been told not to turn on the camera before we get their permission. that's because some of the leaders of these prison gangs and the most notorious gangs the mexican mafia are located. (man) good luck. >>let's try. guards with rifles in watchtowers looked over as we walked out onto the isolation yard. (man) so we have to be on this

side, so the gunner's-- >>so the gunner's can see us from this building. (laura) i started talking with two guys who said they were in the shu because they'd been slandered-- falsely accused of being in neustra familia, the prison gang that controls latino inmates from northern california. but we aren't able to air the interview because the inmates refused to sign a release to be on camera. somebody told him? >>he was just told that he has to be quiet. >>so no one else is going to talk? >>nope. >>so we can't use that, [bleep]. so we were just talking to a couple of guys in these cells, and we started asking them about the political situation in prison. and if they're affiliated with gangs, prison gangs, and they definitely wanted to shy away from that question. they got a message from one of

the other cells to quit talking and we're going to see if anyone else will talk to us. what's your name? >>phillips, but my nickname's diamond. >>phillips, aka diamond. nice to meet you. thanks for talking to us. how long have you been in the shu? >>they put me in the shu under black guerrilla family, and i'm like, what? i'm a crip, through and through. but that title will hold me in the shu until i can come up with some way to get out. >>tell me about the difference between being a crip and being the black guerrilla family. >>well, in essence, the black guerrilla family is more focused on a race type of unity and is more in the bay area. but crips, we came from l.a. and our main enemies was black on

black, and it wasn't about no race. so it was a whole different culture. >>you said that you have a lot of power in the prison system and influence-- with the crips and you're trying to use that for good. how are you able to have that influence from inside the shu, and how do you communicate with the other crips inside the prison? >>i've been in here for 16 years. i've learned different languages, different methods of communication. it ain't about overpowering them physically, i kind of overpower them with logic, and say, okay what's going to work? and that's what led to maybe, a little influence. of course, i'm incarcerated for violence 15 years ago, but just having influence they pegged me as being violent to this day. >>so this is the inside of one

of these modules. and these guys are allowed to come out here for about 10 hours a week, 10 hours every seven days. (man) what's it like here in the winter? >>but do you still come out? even when it's that cold? again, we couldn't use the audio from this conversation because the inmates wouldn't give their permission. we work for a show called current. it airs on cable. can we talk to you guys over there? over by your cell right there. about life. (man) it's pretty different here than on the main yard where we were yesterday. (laura) no one else would talk on camera. in the far cells were inmates from the mexican mafia. they wouldn't even talk off-camera. they just stared as we passed. >>that guy was scary.

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we're heading into the security housing unit, also known as the shu. this is where the most violent offenders as well as the known prison gang leaders are locked up. >>these doors will never remain open. because the other three doors, here the sections, they open them at the same time. right now they're getting prepared to walk into the tiers. they got the face shields, the gloves. they're going to do a security check. >>why do they have to put the shield and the gloves on? >>from protection from the gassing assaults. these inmates that are located in this area, they will do stab assaults, they will throw feces, throw urine. so it's for their protection. they have their stab-proof vests on. they put the gloves on and the face shield. >>what sorts of things do the inmates do when you guys are in there? >>well, they can spit at us.

make weapons out of newspaper. roll them up and then they can stab us through as we open the food ports. shoot it through there. they can make bow and arrow out of it. they're creative. i would say that anything you can think of, they can make in here. >>we'll stand by the door. let them do their tier tour. and then once they come down we'll have them go in the cell with us, okay? >>okay. [door opening] (laura) we were only allowed to enter because most inmates from this section where out in isolation units on the yard for a couple of hours. these guys are conducting a basic security search. and they're giving signals to a man up above me. and we can't film that, but he's controlling the doors and

keeping watch in case anything happens over here. so we have to do this very quickly. but we're going to go into one of the cells, just to see what it's like. and we're going to go in and out. this is the shu, the security housing unit. these guys are locked up here, almost 24/7. they only leave for about 10 hours every week. as you can see, the furniture is just all concrete. these are their beds. there's two to a cell. and there's not much more. there's a tv that they have. and obviously, they get some sort of entertainment from their posters. >>tv's have to have clear plastic cases to make it more

difficult to conceal drugs or weapons. no toilet seats because they can be made into weapons. okay. [door closing] we've been hearing that this whole system, this prison system, is based on fear. and the fear is the fear of these men who are in these cages. these are the men who are in control, even though they are locked in these cells. they still have a lot of power. and you can even feel it when you walk past their cells. and you look into their eyes you can kind of get a sense of the power that they actually hold. >>how do you control this? >>there is no control. they control. we just try to do what we can do to manage. we try to deter some of the drugs coming in. or stop some of the violence when we get the information prior to.

but that's all we can do, try. (laura) in california prison system, almost the only time you see inmates of different races or ethnic groups sharing a cell, is on the day they are waiting to be paroled. so the minute you guys arrived in prison you pretty much had to be aligned with your gang affiliation. >>gang affiliation and my race. >>all three of you guys-- you guys are all three different races. if you weren't getting out today, you wouldn't be in the same cell. would you be interacting? >>probably speaking. but if something were to happen. things happen. >>and that's just the way it works. you gotta line up with somebody, and you go with your own. >>pretty much. that's the way of prison life. if you choose to go on your own, it'll backfire on you.

(man) do you guys ever worry that the kind of politics that happen in here, could like affect outside in california? >>it's already taken place. >>how does that work? how does the politics of the prisons translate into what happens out on the streets? >>want to answer that? >>a lot of the politics, as far as race is concerned unfortunately transfer to the streets. and it's a reality. (man) you think there's more problems out on the streets now than 10 years ago? >>yes. >>yes. (man) really? >>yes. definitely. >>and you would be fighting other hispanic gangs, out on the street. >>as of 10 years ago, yes. nowadays, no. nowadays it has gotten racial. >>so now you'd be fighting black

gangs. >>yeah. >>so there's less violence on the street toward your own group than it is toward other groups. >>that doesn't sound so good for california. >>no. >>it doesn't sound good for humanity period. >>venezuela. [man calling out numbers] stand by the bus please. mr. jenkins. [man calling out numbers] by the bus. mr. smith. [man calling out numbers] out there, by the bus.