i can't tell them don't do it because i've done it. but i can tell them that this isn't the way to go. you're not going to gain from coming here. you lose everything. due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. msnbc takes you behind the walls of america's most notorious prisons into a world of chaos and danger. now, the scenes you've never seen. "lockup: raw." over the years, lockup crews have ventured inside some of america's most dangerous maximum security prisons.

and they have all encountered one absolute certainty. we film in extreme environments. most people would never want to step inside a maximum security prison, yet we send our crews inside some of the most dangerous facilities in america. >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ]. >> yeah, i love pain! >> you can't let your guard down. you have to keep your eyes open in the back of your head. the hairs are constantly up on the back of your neck. because they're violent places, and violence can and does break out at any time. >> [ bleep ]. >> our cameras have been there to capture these dramatic life-and-death conflicts. now we take an even closer look at them through the experiences of our field crews and their raw encounters with violence behind bars.

california state prison, corcoran, home to hundreds of the state's most violent and infamous offenders. hosted "lockup" crews in both 2000 and 2005. >> right before i walked in, i had to sign a document that kind of really made me think twice. and it basically said that in an event that there is a hostage situation inside the prison walls, they will not negotiate for your life and you know the risk that you are taking when you walk in. while at corcoran, you constantly hear these alarms going off. you're never sure what's going to happen in this place. but then when you hear those alarms and everyone dropping down to the ground and you get those rifles peering out of the towers, i mean, immediately it takes your breath away for a second.

>> in most cases the alarm sounds when a fight has broken out between inmates. though these incidents are usually brought to a stop within minutes, they always pose serious danger to the responding officers and to our crews. >> while at corcoran, there was this one instance. we were doing pretty much a routine cell search. we were following along, they had the dogs, it was a controlled environment. we were in one of the pods, one of the cells. and then right in the middle of it we heard the -- you know, and we saw the guards. guards didn't even say anything to us. they just started sprinting. so i'm like, i'm going. >> on the ground! get on your stomachs!

>> inmates know that when alarms sound, they're required to lie on the ground, otherwise correctional officers might target them as combatants. >> by the time we actually got our cameras on to it they were already zip tied up, and face down and the whole yard of counted 600 inmates were completely down on the ground. >> okay, get up. >> so officer mitchell, what just happened just now? >> basically, what we had, two guys, they wanted to horseplay, get a little bit heavy. if we allowed things like that to continue, what's going to happen is they're going to start fighting, the possibility of other people getting involved. >> though the alarm call at corcoran ended peacefully, our cameras encountered a different situation at northern california's pelican bay state prison. >> one, two, three. >> just having a routine guard release. >> our producer was conducting an interview with lieutenant ben

grundy while a second camera was shooting routine footage on the yard below. then suddenly -- >> there is an alarm in that building right there, a-3. >> our cameras search for any signs that the trouble is spreading outside to the exercise yard. >> so this is an actual alarm because nobody is waving us off yet. something is going on inside the building. >> what might be happening? >> probably an assault on someone coming out of their cell. some type of cell fight or slashing. >> officers subdued six inmates involved in the fight. one of them was slashed with a homemade weapon. fortunately, this incident was nothing like the deadly events of february 3, 2000. >> the day they had the big riot i was standing in this exact spot. >> on that rainy day, joshua voss, a newcomer to pelican bay, was down in the recreation yard

with scores of other prisoners. many of them were wearing rain gear, not only as protection from the elements, but to hide dozens of homemade weapons. >> and i noticed over here some people started stabbing each other. >> this surveillance footage reveals a group of southern mexican gang members unleashing a vicious coordinated attack against a group of black inmates. the beginning of california's worst prison riot. >> i looked around and all over the yard there was fighting and stabbings going on. >> doug burrell and dozens of his fellow officers tried to subdue inmates with pepper spray and teargas, but every time it seemed the staff had the situation under control, another fight broke out. >> it looked like the movie "braveheart" fight scene in "braveheart" but it was the real deal. >> they started firing shots. so everybody that wasn't involved in the riot laid on the ground. >> even the gunfire raining down

from pelican bay security towers did not quell the riot until one of the inmates was killed. 15 others were wounded. >> after we were done, i was cleaning blood off the walls and off the floors and benches in here for a good hour. >> pelican bay's worst riot was fueled by the inmates' impulse for violence. and many of those inmates ended up here. the security housing unit, or the shu. >> inmates that were placed into the shu housing unit were placed in here for the most part because of violence. that violence could be against other inmates or against officers. >> it was here in pelican bay's most secure unit that we came across perhaps the prison's most dangerous inmate. >> my name is scanvinski hymes. i got the name from my mother. she wanted me to have the name no other black man in america would have. >> hymes was originally sent to

prison for possessing a weapon in a youth facility. at the time our cameras profiled him in 2000, he had been locked up for more than 12 years, almost half his life. >> everything is the same. nothing really changes too much. i mean, wake up in the morning, eat breakfast, go to the yard. when i get bored, i got -- i got to get into stuff, you know? >> the stuff hymes most frequently gets into is provoking officers to extract him from his cell. each inmate is assigned a security risk classification score based on his disciplinary record. [ bleep ] the average score ranges between 19 and 27 points. >> i probably have the highest classification score in this prison system, i'm over 2,000 points now. i have caught over 30, almost 40 felonies in prison. various staff assaults, stabbed, anything you can think of.

only thing i haven't been convicted of in prison is murder and drugs. >> so now [ bleep ]. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> hymes is probably one of our most difficult behavioral. he will tell you to your face his agenda. his agenda is to fight you every chance he can. >> he'll watch you and his hope is that you will make a mistake so he can either get out or fight with you. that is his plan, that's what he does 24 hours a day. >> every time i see him, it's to make their eight hours as stressful as possible. >> hymes, turn around. >> nope. i'm not going to turn around. you know, whatever that may be, be making noise all day. whatever i can do to make their eight hours as stressful as possible. they say, well, i'm going home,

i'm going home. but, yeah, when you go home, you'll be back tomorrow. >> close it. close it. >> hold it. >> hold it. >> come on. >> [ bleep ]. >> that's the thing about this place. well, kick me out of prison. if they don't want me here, kick me out. >> eventually transferred to san quentin state prison, the man who is arguably california's most violent inmate completed his sentence and was released in 2007. >> you have people locked up in this, this type of environment and then you release them to the street. what do you expect? >> back up -- ha-ha. next on "lockup: raw." >> they'll come across their enemy, slice them across the neck. >> the ingenious weapons inmates use to attack. and the lengths officers will go

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every day in america's prisons correctional officers are searching for them. >> a lot of these weapons were confiscated on the yards. >> in prison slang they're known as shanks. they're the deadly weapons inmates create from behind bars, with an ingenuity that almost defies imagination. >> what they'll do is get a disposable razor, put both blades, one on each side of the toothbrush. they come across their enemy. and slice them across the neck. because the two blades are so wide apart, it just filets the individual wide open.

>> inmates will do almost anything to hide the weapons they spend so much time manufacturing. >> the first one looks like a wire shank. these are all covered or wrapped in some kind of latex material and then lubricated with whatever they can find. >> how long can they keep it up there? >> i believe the average time is about a day. but when it is time to pull it out, sometimes it won't come out and it leads to other problems. >> because inmates go to extreme lengths to fashion and conceal weapons, officers must be outfitted with a high-tech, nonlethal arsenal of their own. our cameras were rolling at riverbend maximum security institution in tennessee as correctional officers practiced firing 50,000-volt tasers at inanimate objects.

then the demonstration moved to other targets, their fellow officers. >> how did you get chosen to be the lucky guy? >> he volunteered. >> i volunteered. i'm a glutton for punishment. >> are you ready? >> agh! oh!

is these four-point restraints. and they tell him exactly what they're going to be doing. >> mental health staff has ordered you to be placed in four point restraints. you understand that? >> yeah. >> i need your cooperation. the more you cooperate, the faster you will be out of points. >> sergeant gilbert duran supervises the carefully choreographed restraint process. >> the deputies have already been briefed as to who will take the upper body, who will take

the lower body extremities. sometimes it takes a couple of extra deputies to hold the upper body if they're struggling or really upset about what's happening to them. and about how many four points are done per week? >> we average up here -- on day shift and p.m., probably anywhere from three to six a day. >> as extreme as four-point restraints are, inmates sometimes take an equally extreme measure to attack officers. one that is particularly vile. >> gassing is what we call it. it's a mixture of feces and urine sometimes fermented for days until it stews into something that is so grotesque that you can't mention it. >> during his 14 years on the job, san quentin officer jones has never had a worse experience than being gassed. >> i would rather be punched, rather be kicked, rather be stabbed than to be gassed like i

was back in '92. >> we have never heard a more extreme account of gassing as the one described by kentucky state penitentiary inmate, fleece johnson. >> i asked everybody on the wall to [ bleep ] in a bucket. send it down to me. and i would take, two, three, light bulbs, put it in some toilet paper, step on it, break it in some little fragments, so when i throw it on them, they wipe it, it will cut into them and get in their blood. and i was standing there with a big old bucket of it and throw it in their face. they would just go nuts. and so the corrections finally made a law that made it a felony. and then that's when i stopped.

coming up on "lockup: raw." the most violent confrontations behind bars. cell extractions. >> they tell you to back up to the door. if you back up you're a bitch. ♪ the one and only, cheerios wake up!

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some of the most dangerous confrontations in prison happen when correctional officers are forced to extract an inmate from his cell. extractions are carried out by specially trained teams of correctional officers according to exact guidelines. >> i'm officer allen. i'm the number three man for the team. i'm responsible for controlling the inmate's left arm. i will use the least amount of force necessary. >> the entire process is carefully choreographed and videotaped for the protection of officers and inmates alike. [ inaudible ] [ bleep ]

>> when we visited the kentucky state penitentiary, we met inmate dwayne harper, who had a long history of forcing officers to extract him from his cell. >> [ bleep ] i fight sometimes. i argue with the guards but i'm not violent. you know, i've done a lot of time. i've been doing time on and off since i was 12 years old. >> when we first met harper he was serving his third year in administrative segregation or solitary confinement for having assaulted correctional officers. >> in my opinion, duane is a really stressed out individual. >> don't just strip me out for talking.

strip everybody out for talking you [ bleep ]. >> shortly after "lockup"

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here's what's happening. john edwards former mistress has written a tell-all book about her affair with the former senator. it is set to be released june 26th. it's expected to include revealing details about their relationship which began while edward was still married. >> connecticut is now the 17th state to allow the use of medical marijuana.

doctors will able to prescribe the drug to patients who suffer from illnesses like cancer and ms.  due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. with "lockup," we film in some of the toughest prisons in america. every time we send a crew out to a maximum security prison, you never know what might happen with regards to violence. whether it's a stabbing, whether it's a fight in the yard, or even a riot. there's always a chance that violence may break out. >> we found that was the case when we visited california's legendary fulsom state prison. >> you can feel it. it's like electricity in the air. it's so thick you can actually breathe in the tension. >> in the blink of an eye in that much time it can change. because there is the real threat, attitude or temper can change in a moment. >> and tempers did flare while our cameras were in the yard.

>> we'd just gotten done interviewing, basically, a prison preacher. >> i'm a born again christian, and i believe that everybody should know the lord. if you don't know the lord, i encourage you to know the lord. >> i got done putting the camera down. my cameraman was walking around. and then i started hearing a bing, like bing, bing, bing. literally five feet away i see this man probably in his late 50s, early 60s, and i look down and i saw these two younger hispanic guys kicking him in the head, like, repeatedly, and his head was bouncing off this pole. >> what you saw here today was actually a battery. they were stomping his head. he was pretty messed up.

and he said, what are you going

or you talking about him and

>> how about he starts talking >> then don't cop an attitude. >> i'm not -- i'm not coming an had been provoked by repeated

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more beautiful flowers and bountiful vegetables. guaranteed. so even if... i have all these tools, and i have no idea how to use them. [ female announcer ] everyone grows with miracle-gro. over the years, we've learned that attacks on officers are an all-too-frequent occupational hazard. when we visited indiana's wabash valley correctional facility, officers in the security housing unit were dealing with the latest in a string of violent incidents involving convicted burglar, douglas mccombs. >> since he's been inside the shu, he's been on strip cell.

when you see the offender coming out of his cell only wearing his underwear, he was on strip cell for resisting staff or trying to assault staff before. we have had trouble with him on about every range we've put him on so far. >> i can't get along with people too much. especially when they're evil. >> one of the people mccombs claims was evil, officer sachen. >> an average day in the shu can be pretty mundane. you have rec and showers to do. chow to serve, md sick call, so on and so forth. some days like today get a little more exciting. we had an offender who became belligerent in the shower. >> the offender was mccombs who told us he had good reason to be i need something to wash, a bar

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violence inside america's prisons comes in many forms. at iowa state penitentiary, we found that the most brutal violence is sometimes against oneself. >> open 11. 22-year-old inmate caleb etter, suffered severe burns over two-thirds of his body when the methamphetamine lab he was running exploded. when we interviewed etter, he was also serving time for both sexual assault and for attacking a peace officer.

>> i just push everything to the limit, because as you can tell, i think i'm unstoppable. i think nothing will stop me. nothing will ever kill me. i thought i was god. reality check, i'm not. >> in spite of his calm demeanor, a few hours after this interview, etter got into a verbal confrontation with a female correctional officer that quickly escalated. c.e.r.t., the correctional emergency response team, was called in to extract him from his cell. >> he's been banging his head on the door, spitting at the glass, refusing to move or comply with any orders. we have permission to use force to extract him from his cell. >> for security reasons, the prison videotapes all extractions. >> you ready to move? >> put your hand out. >> open b-11. >> a mask is placed over etter's head to prevent him from spitting.

>> let's go. >> initially he seems to be compliant. but as they pass through the doorway, etter explodes. >> hey, hey, hey. >> [ bleep ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ] i swear to -- break my neck. break my neck! i swear to god, break my neck. yeah, i love pain! yeah! yeah! etter, stop, stop, stop banging your head. >> yeah. hurt me more. >> secured. >> etter, let's walk. no more banging your head. understand. >> i'll kill you all. i'll kill you all, you [ bleep ]. you understand? i'll kill you all. i'll kill you. >> etter. calm down. >> hey, calm down. >> put him down. >> on the floor. >> all right. >> got his legs. >> all right. easy. >> hurt me more. hurt me more. ow. ow! let's go up.

stand up and walk normal. >> etter. etter! >> as his fit continues, etter is taken to the suicide prevention unit for observation. >> [ bleep ] come on, hurt me more! come on! hurt me! >> nobody wants to hurt you. >> why are you [ bleep ] and smashing me against the wall if you didn't want to hurt me, huh? >> to prevent him from harming himself, etter is placed in four-point restraints. >> lay back. lay back. >> no. it's not bruised. >> our cameras were there the next morning when a nurse came in to check on him. >> etter, are you feeling like you still want to hurt yourself? >> i never wanted to hurt yourself. >> now, were you banging your head last night? >> yes, because i was frustrated. i do that when i'm frustrated. >> that's not the right thing to do is it now? >> it's better than hurting somebody else. >> well, you're right. when i'm going to do now is call

the psychiatrist and see if we can discontinue the four-point order so he doesn't have to go back into them now. i don't feel he is of any threat to himself or others at this point. >> released from the four-point restraints, etter is moved to a 24-hour observation cell and is placed in a suicide smock. a tear-proof gown to prevent him from hanging himself. our crew later accompanied the nurse when she asked etter to relay his version of what led to the extraction, the confrontation he had with a female officer. >> she started agitating me at my door. i said, get lost. get the [ bleep ] out of ear. i don't like you, i don't want to talk to you. she made a smart out comment. i smashed my head on the door. i said, you see that right there? next time it's going to be yours. i said, get the [ bleep ] on. and then i spit on the window. that's what i think of you, you're nothing but trash. i said, get the [ bleep ] gone.

she started [ bleep ], saying, at least i ain't some meth-using, something like that. i snapped. i said, if you want to go there, i'll have someone on the outside pay you a visit and it will start [ bleep ] and rape every one of your kids and kill you. i said, how do you like that [ bleep ]? you don't [ bleep ] go there. >> four days later, etter is released back to his cell. >> he seems to be doing a lot better to me. i hope you feel you are. >> yeah, i'm doing better. >> i'm glad to hear that. just keep it up. >> i just get a little frustrated. i react off my emotions. i never think ahead -- i never plan ahead about what i'm doing. >> etter has since been moved to iowa state's maximum security unit due to ongoing disciplinary issues. no one can tell if he'll hurt himself again, e