due to mature and graphic subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. there are 2 million people behind bars in america. for the next hour we open the gates. "lockup." >> it's not our job to extract justice. it's our job to keep these people in these cells here. >> pretty rough, you know. >> you eat yourself. >> it's an adventure every day. >> you can't let your guard down for a second. >> you know where mommy is? and he says, yeah, in jail. >> nobody plans on coming to jail. i don't think they do.

i don't. it just happened. >> how come you're all in there? are you having a party in there? >> as you can see, i've got concrete bars. i don't have any place to expand. i can't make another cell. >> i'm not a very violent person, but i can be violent when i want to. >> a lot of people in here with hiv. >> the first one looks like a wire shank. >> a stabbing. knocking a guy down and just kicking him until he's bleeding. >> these kids don't know how to act like proper gangsters anymore. >> los angeles county, california, has a population larger than 42 states in the nation. nearly 10 million people live there. it is also the home to one of the largest jail systems in the world. more than 20,000 men and women live within the eight different facilities spread across 50 miles of southern california. unlike a prison, where an inmate has been convicted of a crime, those in jail are there temporarily, either awaiting trial, transfer, or bond payment

for release. in this program our cameras take you behind the walls of l.a. county jail into a system that is overcrowded, tough on gangs, and struggling with an increase in racial violence. through it all and against all odds there are people there trying to make a difference. let's go inside l.a. county jail in this special two-hour edition of "lockup." >> shadowed by beautiful skyscrapers and the world famous hollywood sign, the main hub of the jail is located in downtown l.a. on bauchet street. adjacent to the twin towers jail is the inmate reception center, or irc. this is where more than 2,000 inmates are bused in and booked seven days a week. >> everybody that comes in comes through the funnel. >> chief of custody operations, taylor moorehead, has been running the jail for the past two years, supervising eight jails, 5,000 employees, and

20,000 inmates. >> basically, they are arrested by whatever agency in los angeles county. generally, all the agencies book into now the consolidated booking system, which is the l.a. county jail system. >> with close to 100 buses, inmates are picked up from the various courts and police stations in the county of los angeles. their first stop inside l.a. county jail is the inmate reception center. >> on a busy day on monday through tuesday we're talking about anywhere from 600 to 800 inmates that are being booked each of those days. on wednesday, thursday, fridays, the number is somewhat less. but we average about 400 a day if you take out the whole seven-day work period. >> it's 7:00 p.m. on a monday night, and the irc's garage is filling up like new york city's port authority. for two hours buses fortified like prison cells drop off hundreds of inmates to be booked

into the county jail. >> well, first thing what we do is back here behind us we have the search-out rooms. inmates are brought in from different courts and from different station holding tanks, and they're sat there and we process them, line them up, remove all their contraband that they have. we also remove any knives or guns, whatever they might come in with from the streets. sometimes they put drugs inside their shoes, extra handcuff keys inside their shoes as well. >> following the search identification wrist bands with booking numbers and bar codes are scanned into the jail's central computer. the inmates are then given bologna sandwiches and some juice. from there they're told to follow a series of lines painted on the floor. >> okay. blue line's going to take them to cell b, which is for male. and they're going to wait --

they're going to wait in that cell to be booked. the yellow line's going to take them into cell one, which is going to be in classification. if they've already been booked, then they can go on and be classified. inmates are classified in three levels -- low, medium, and high, depending on their past crimes. >> my second time. for the same thing. i didn't finish my domestic violence classes, and that's why i got sentenced for 180 days, for not completing them. >> 21-year-old convicted wife batterer miguel castillo is no stranger to the system. >> the worst thing in processing, that you don't get your bed until sometimes eight hours, ten hours. today they told me i wasn't going to get a bed until 24 hours. >> it's a long drive from santa monica to l.a. we have to stop off in beverly hills. >> 28-year-old multiple drug offender daniel johns has only been in jail for a few hours, but he's already missing his

freedom. >> i wished i was outside. you know, i seen a lot of people at the liquor store, people at the beach, you know, when i was leaving santa monica. there's just places that i wanted to be. >> before inmates can be housed, they need to be classified. >> do you have any tattoos? >> have you ever served in the military? >> no. >> are you homeless? >> no. >> are you taking any prescription medication that you would need within the next six hours? >> no. >> are you thinking about killing yourself? >> no. >> once an inmate has been classified, if he hasn't been fingerprinted or photoed for his booking photo, they'll wait inside the cell behind you. they're called out one by one. we'll bring them out to the machines, the life scan machines behind us. we'll fingerprint them digitally. the fingerprints are actually sent down to cal i.d., which is in norwalk. and they'll match that person's fingerprints up with past crimes that he's done. >> the green line, gentlemen. >> once the new inmates have been fully processed, they are stripped down, showered, and given their l.a. county blues. before any inmate can leave the irc, they need to be x-rayed for

tuberculosis, checked medically by a doctor, and screened by a psychiatrist. >> you want to hurt yourself? what plans do you have to hurt yourself? >> i don't know. whatever plans i can come up with. >> if i put a rope in front of you, are you going to hang yourself? >> that's very possible. >> that's very possible? >> very possible. >> are there voices talking to you? >> yes, there are. >> you hear voices telling you to hurt yourself? >> yes. >> with only a few minutes with each inmate psychiatrists at the irc have the hard task of diagnosing complex mental disorders before deciding where they are to be housed. it's 1:00 in the morning in the irc, and for one inmate the long wait has taken its toll. >> everybody else sit down. >> apparently, he was told to do something, and he did not comply. at that point he became physically uncooperative and we had to take him to the floor when he started to fight us. >> in cases where inmates are determined to be a danger to themselves, psychiatrists or mental health doctors may order the deputies to place the inmate

in four-point restraints. >> the mental health staff has ordered you to be placed in four-point restraints. you understand that? >> for both deputies' and inmates' protection all four-points are videotaped. on a busy eight-hour p.m. shift, staff can be asked to administer as many as six four-points a day. >> smile for the camera. >> the majority of them are pretty much -- about half of them are cooperative. some come in here really angry, really upset. some just not in touch with reality. >> you bitch. you punk little bitch! >> give him a sedative. >> sometimes you get people that come up here and spit on the deputies. they wear spit masks. or sometimes they try to bite the deputies. so we ask the deputies to be very, very careful. obviously, you don't want to hurt the inmate. you try to put them in positions that are not where they won't hurt themselves or where my

deputies will not get hurt. so there's a variety of things that can happen. it just depends on the inmate himself, how he behaves from here on out. next, "lockup" takes you inside men's central jail, l.a. county's most notorious maximum security facility. (man) when i can't go, it's like bricks piling up. i wish i could find some relief. (announcer) ask your doctor about linzess-- a once-daily capsule for adults with ibs with constipation or chronic idiopathic constipation. linzess is thought to help calm pain-sensing nerves and accelerate bowel movements. it helps you proactively manage your symptoms. do not give linzess to children under 6, and it should not be given to children 6 to 17. it may harm them. don't take linzess if you have a bowel blockage. get immediate help if you develop unusual or severe stomach pain especially with bloody or black stools the most common side effect is diarrhea, sometimes severe. if it's severe, stop taking linzess and call your doctor right away. other side effects include gas, stomach-area pain and swelling. bottom line, ask your doctor

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after 15 hours in l.a. county's inmate reception center, these prisoners are sent to men's central jail. built in 1963, this maximum security facility can house up to 7,500 inmates. larger than most state prisons, the 900,000-square-foot facility is the first stop for 90% of the inmates. >> what you've got here is an entire population of the downtrodden. you've got the losers in society, you've got gang members. >> here we have everything from duis that are in here for a day or two to 187s, mexican mafia affiliates that are here for cases that end up going upstate pretty soon. we've had robert downey jr., all the big celebrities.

>> straight out of the academy, sheriff's deputies are assigned to a jail before getting a street patrol. they can spend on average three to four years working the jails. with the help of custody assistants deputies are there to keep the peace and to get the inmates to court on time. general population for men's central jail is located on the second floor. the low to medium-security inmates are put in day rooms that can hold up to 30 people. the maximum security inmates share a 10 x 10 cell with up to six other men. >> you're going nowhere. we do everything in our cell. clothing exchange once a week. we shower every other day. you know, but we never come out of the cell. we get fed three times a day, you know. same gig every day, you know. it doesn't change. >> it's pretty rough, you know. you miss your family a lot, your loved ones. you've just got to blank it out

most of the time, you know. take it day by day. that's all you can do. >> twice convicted robber 21-year-old gabriel anthony bernal will be doing 12 years in state prison before he sees freedom again. due to the california three strikes law, if convicted again, he will spend the rest of his life in jail. >> i've got to walk that straight line. you know, i have two strikes now. i'm a two-striker. i've been convicted of my second strike. facing some serious time, you know. i've got to get my head right. so i plan to be a construction worker. you know, it's too late for school mostly. >> for other inmates like

19-year-old matthew crop, who was arrested for robbery, being locked up is part of being a gangster. >> you know, i don't plan on -- nobody plans on coming to jail. i don't think they do. i don't. it just happens, you know. living in the gangster's life, you know. >> with only one hour per week outside the cell, inmates find creative ways to occupy their time spent in jail. >> man and woman conceiving a child. a latin male hispanic. teardrop. a tattoo for murder. he's doing life. ♪ mama don't you cry ♪ mama don't you worry ♪ mama just stay strong ♪ even though your son is gone ♪ i was locked in the county jail when i heard the news ♪ ♪ i was mad as hell mama just thinking about you ♪ >> 18-year-old teshawn solomon is waiting to be sent to state prison for 12 years on a felony drug conviction. >> i mean, to tell you the truth, it's like the streets.

you know what i'm saying? you meet people. live your life. eat. you know what i mean? do about the same as you do on the street. me, i done been here for 10, 11 months. it's nothing to a boss, you know. >> many of the state prison inmates in california come from the l.a. county jail. with an annual budget in the hundreds of millions, overcrowding continues to be a growing concern. >> as you can see, i've got concrete bars. you know, i don't have any place to expand. i can't make another cell. that's the achilles heel of jail systems everywhere, is how many

inmates you have. that's your clients. >> the los angeles county jail has a higher inmate to guard ratio than any other county jail in the country. sheriff's deputies have to deal with the daily threat of getting stabbed, having feces thrown at them, and even contracting aids. for some deputies the stress is too much to handle. >> we've had guys come in just a day, day or two, and they look around and they're like i'm out of here. they'll give us the keys, and they won't even say they're out of here. next day we'll come in and they'll be gone. i'll go down and check it out. they'll be like, yeah, he resigned or -- because this is where you actually figure out if you really want to do this or not. >> five minutes. get ready. >> with their hands in their pockets and heads pointed to the ground, lines and lines of inmates are ushered through the long corridors of the jail to and from court. when they return to their housing unit, each inmate is searched and taken through a series of metal detectors. >> well, it's an adventure every day. >> deputy shannon sidney works on the fifth floor of the jail, also called 5000. it houses homosexuals. these inmates are segregated for

their own protection. >> i call it the drama floor because you get a mix of everything. normally, they're separated from everyone else simply because you can't put them in general population because a lot of times they will be -- they will be abused. you can get rape or sodomy incidents. they wear blue tops and yellow pants. and with males they have black shoes because there's a lot of homosexual inmates that they can fool you. they're gender bias -- or gender bending and it's hard to tell. >> it's not pleasant. but it all depend on how you look at things. you know what i mean? i'm just trying to make the best of my situation regardless of where i'm at. >> for the last 25 years 37-year-old inmate bernard swain has been in and out of jail for drugs and prostitution. >> you know, it just goes with everything. you know, you're making fast money, doing the streets, doing

drugs and stuff like that. then you come in here, you've just got to -- >> due to the widespread of sexually transmitted diseases like hiv and hepatitis, officials at men's central jail are considering supplying inmates with condoms. >> yeah. we don't have no protection in here, no safe sex. you know, there's a lot of people in here with hiv, you know, and stuff like that, and they just pass it on to other people. it's not clean whatsoever. you know, for sexual stuff. yeah. >> sometimes visitors that come to see the inmates flash for the inmates. >> for most inmates getting visits from family and friends is the only link to the outside world. for 18-year-old convicted murderer antonio bobo this is the first family visit he's had since being jailed. >> what do you talk to your

cousin about when she comes and visits? >> i ask her what's going on in the streets. you know, how's her life doing, how's the family doing. basic conversation. >> the general population gets 15 minutes four days a week. they're on timers. we push the button, we start up, and it clicks when it goes off. but as soon as the phones shut off the voices tend to get a little loud. guys start to wander from row to row, and we've got to keep an eye on that. we don't want them passing things from other inmates. they can go upstairs with any type of contraband, drugs, any shanks or anything of that nature. >> more than half of the inmates in l.a. county jail don't get visitors. next on "lockup" -- one of the most dangerous assignments in l.a. county jail. gang intelligence. insurance, wet just insuring our lives... we're helping protect his. [ female announcer ] everyone has a moment when tomorrow becomes real. transamerica. transform tomorrow.

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today in the l.a. county jail almost half of the 20,000 inmates are street gang members. as seen in this footage, out of the 1,500 assaults that occur in the jail per year, 70% to 80% of those crimes are committed by a rival gang member. >> assault with a deadly weapon. a stabbing. knocking a guy down and just kicking him till he's bleeding. those type of crimes. >> gangs in l.a. county jail are highly organized groups with deadly rules and regulations. the gang leaders, or shot callers, earn their titles by committing murders to gain the respect from both their enemies as well as fellow gang members. inmates targeted for a gang hit

are called greenlighters. >> these are individual names. i mean, it's real difficult to read. they write very small so that it makes it difficult for us to try to decipher it. but the top part, these are gangs that just are to be assaulted, and they have what they call hard candy, and those are individuals that they want killed. >> to combat the growing problem of gang violence behind bars, a task force called operation safe jail, or osj, was formed. >> we try to identify who the gang members are that are in the system, and then we kind of try to make a guess at what level in the gang they are. if they're somebody who's very active, we'll try to isolate them from general population. >> sergeant roger ross is in charge of the osj unit that monitors all gang activity within the l.a. county jail system. >> los angeles county jail is unique in the fact that every gang in los angeles county ends up coming here.

it doesn't matter if they're a black gang, an asian gang, a hispanic gang, or a white gang. if they're active in los angeles county and they get arrested, they end up coming to the los angeles county jail system. >> the osj unit must rely on communication to help prevent gang violence. >> solving crime is all about getting the information from somebody. it's not physical evidence. >> we ain't with nobody. it's just mainly a money thing. mainly we just doing our thing. everybody's doing their individual thing. >> you have had a history of feuding with who? blacks or hispanics? throughout the years over there. >> it's been a history of whoever stepped on our toes. >> knowing which gangs are fighting each other helps the osj unit decide who to remove from general population and where to search for weapons. >> we have found them with hacksaw blades, anything that --

a metal rod. in our ovens you have the grills that you put in the oven to cook on. they'll break off the rods on that. here's a shampoo bottle that was just once a plastic bottle, they've melted down and converted that into a weapon. >> getting caught with a jailhouse weapon is a serious offense. which is why gang members take extreme measures to hide them. >> what we have here is the first one looks like a wire shank. basically, they've recovered that off a vent. these two are both shoe shanks. there's a metal support in different types of shoes, basically all shoes. they take them out and file them to a point also to one end and use them as a -- either a stabbing device or what have you. >> unfortunately for the inmates, the osj unit can't prevent all acts of violence inside the jail. sometimes they get there too late. >> and we've had similar

situations where we found the inmate after the whole thing was over and he was dead. here's a photo of an individual that wasn't so fortunate as to be saved in time. >> for inmates who do commit murders and assaults, there is the high power floor. high power is a section for high security inmates only. it's a jail within a jail. deputies assigned to this floor are hand-picked due to their expertise in dealing with the worst inmates. >> everybody in this section is classified as a k-10, which is no inmate contact with other inmates. all their movement is done, their waist chain, their exercise is all isolated, very limited contact with other inmates. due to their highly assaultive behavior. >> sheriff deputy dan shannon has supervised high power for the last three years. >> we had several stabbings, and you know, you can't let your

guard down for a second. because that's when either you will be assaulted or they will assault somebody else. >> high power inmates are housed in single 6 x 9 cells and are monitored by surveillance cameras and deputies 24 hours a day. >> basically, this is what we call the catwalk. it's the security corridor for staff to go down a row and visually either do a security check or count or just get down the row and see what's going on. the walls are all painted black so that they don't see us. this is a one-way mirror. and so they can't see us but we can see them. >> in case of a riot, catwalks can also be locked down to protect deputies from violence. >> are you mentally insane, dude? next -- "lockup" takes you

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the bodies of three people killed when a plane crashed into a flight training facility at the wichita airport have been covered from the rubble. the ntsb hopes the cockpit box recovered will help to determine what happened. the storm dumping as much as 10 inches of snow in south carolina today. more news later. now back to "lockup." while drugs, violence, and gangs are a common problem in jails across california, a variety of mental health issues in the inmate population also create a considerable challenge for overworked jail administrators. with large numbers of these inmates returning to the community every day, mental health professionals and sheriff's deputies are working

together to find better ways to identify and treat their patients before they head home. tower number one is a 185-foot-tall facility that has no bars. the thousands of square feet of security glass and other acoustical materials serve as sound barriers, making it a uniquely quiet facility. its high-tech design allows a module control deputy to see into each of the 96 cells with one glance. this is where all of the male inmates with mental health problems are housed. every morning in tower number one, doctors, nurses and deputies meet to discuss inmates' treatments and behavior. to protect the inmates' identities from msnbc's cameras, the staff refers to their booking numbers. >> inmate 227 i saw yesterday on the seventh floor. he's doing a lot better. so i thought we'd give him a try down here.

he's still very paranoid. so we may want to kind of approach him a little cautiously. >> any problem people? >> we have five that are on lockdown. we have inmate 015 for creating a disturbance. he has 24 hours lockdown. that's all i have. >> dr. jeffrey marsh is the co-team leader for the mental health program in tower number one. >> we try to get everyone's perspective on what's going on. we also try to get a feel for who's here, who's new, who's left, what we've done during the course of their stay. >> dr. thomas klotz is the chief psychiatrist for the l.a. county jail, which provides mental health services to the 160,000 inmates that come and leave jail every year. >> i did a high-speed pursuit because i was just sick of being harassed by law enforcement, which is the biggest mistake i ever made in my life. >> for inmate timothy matisse, who was sentenced to two years for possession of methamphetamine, the department

of mental health's programs has helped him discover the problems that led him to jail. >> so the high-speed pursuit was related to the -- >> oh, absolutely. >> -- fears that you had? >> well, yeah. the way they make it look like is they're going to say, okay, well, maybe he's schizophrenic. and knowing that i'm not schizophrenic and it's really happening and it's going on, they can say, well, it's the drug use. >> for other inmates at l.a. county death is the easiest way to escape their cell. >> we put a tremendous amount of effort into developing the screening system because we know that the highest risk, particularly for suicide, of people entering custody is during the first 24 hours that they're incarcerated. >> according to the bureau of justice statistics, suicide ranks second behind natural causes as the leading cause of

death behind bars in local jails. >> there's a strong urine smell. we do our best to keep that smell away, but that's pretty typical of a jail, especially a mental housing unit. >> senior deputy paxton reinecker supervises the suicide floor, which houses the most severe mentally ill inmates. >> each person when they're new to the seventh floor are given the suicidal gown, and what that does is it's nearly impossible to tear that gown apart to hang themselves, clog the toilets, the stuff that they do on a daily basis, a lot of these guys. >> inmates who are suicidal are put in single cells and are checked on every 15 minutes by a deputy. >> tell me again one more time nice and slow. >> you know, i eat myself because -- >> you eat yourself? >> yes. because two officers lied to me. >> they just lied to you? >> yes, they do. >> what did they lie to you about? >> i'm the chief of the fbi.

i'm deputy chief of the fbi. edgar hoover signed a bill that made me chief of the fbi. >> this inmate, who due to his mental condition cannot be identified, has not left his cell for seven months. >> a lot of the writing on the door is human feces, and he also has combined a little mustard on it for coloring. so that's what he's writing with on the actual door. a lot of the stuff inside he's able to get a lead tip or whatever. he's been here for a long time. he just continually works on it. next, "lockup" takes you inside tower number two, where female felons, prostitutes, and drug abusers are housed.

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according to the u.s. department of justice, women account for 17% of all felony convictions in state courts and 11% of all violent offenses committed. tower number two of the l.a. county jail houses all of the women inmates. like tower number one, its modular design with no bars and high visibility makes it easier for deputies to manage the inmates. >> it's a lot easier because you don't have the movement going on that you did like at the old jails. you had a lot of movement. everybody had to go down and eat chow in the chow hall. and now they all eat in their pods. so we don't have the movement. and you also have direct supervision where everybody is moved with a deputy or custody

assistant officer. >> 16-year veteran nancy medina is the line sergeant for tower two. >> how you doing, ladies? >> she's responsible for all the deputies and custody assistants on the evening shift. >> i start out with check-in. we check in all our employees for the shift, specifically p.m.s. and then i go from floor to floor and check and make sure they're doing their jobs, the count is clear. >> how come you're all in there? are you having a party in there? >> we have a certain number of inmates that are in the facility, and what we do is we have to actually count the heads to make sure that every body is where it's supposed to be. if it's not, then we have to find out where the body is. >> 44? >> more than half of the women inside l.a. county jail are in for drug-related charges. >> i got four years state prison even though and in spite of the newly adapted proposition 36, where we're supposed to be able

to go to drug programs if we have a drug problem, and i do have one. >> 50-year-old habitual drug offender kimberly jean maybe has a difficult time being treated like an inmate. >> we're threatened for everything. we're threatened. to sit for count. we're threatened to get in our bunks. we're threatened to get things out of our hair that may just make us feel a little bit more feminine. but every year that i come to a county jail i am defeminized more. >> 46-year-old inmate and mother of three children denise branagh committed her first robbery at the age of 40. >> number six is where i live. this is temporary residency, right? okay. come on in. you are entering my little domain. here is where i put my makeup on every day. i wash my face every day. i flush my toilet. >> known to the other female inmates as mom, branagh sees

this time in jail as a wake-up call. >> i said, i have a degree in child development. i work with kids. i just make the wrong choices. maybe it's thinking can i get away if i do it? can i get away with it? but i get caught every time. you know? but this is a wake-up call. this is all. i feel if i have to go through something like this again, we'll hold trial and jury on the street and i'll die before i come back. that's it. >> female inmates who commit jailhouse violations are brought before a review board called sergeant's court. >> we have them come down here to the hold and we have a hearing for them and we decide how many days they're going to get in the hole.

>> you're here -- you're charged with fighting and creating a disturbance. do you know anything about that? >> yes, i do. >> somehow she got a bloody lip. you think she bit it? >> yes. i think she did it herself, seriously, because she did lie about me having a pick in my hand trying to stab her. >> did you hit her back? >> yes, i hit her back. >> okay. >> defending on the violation, an inmate can receive up to 20 days in the hole. >> i'm going to give you eight days. next time you have any kind of problems, you get ahold of the deputy. >> i have a problem with eight days. >> okay. do you want to appeal it? >> i don't know how she got that injury, but i gave her the same amount of days i'm going to give you, which is eight days down here. so hopefully, that will keep you from fighting again. you won't want to come back here. >> once a female inmate has been sentenced by the sergeant, they are stripped of their phone, visiting, and exercise privileges and placed on lockdown. >> discipline module. module 311. it's considered by the inmates, you know, the hole. >> this button here is for emergencies. >> custody assistant carolina salazar works the discipline module that can house up to 47

female inmates. >> they're making noise. what's your medical emergency, gilbreth? okay. i'll send a trustee over to get you some. okay? >> i like it. solitude, you know. gives you time to think. i ain't got to worry about nobody being too close or, you know, bothering me. just me and my own thoughts. >> with only five days left in her 20 days of isolation in the hole for fighting, 37-year-old inmate kinay haines discovered ways of breaking up the monotony. >> you can talk through the vents. right here in the same part right here, right here there's a hole you can commute with your neighbor. i used to communicate with my neighbor. but she left today. >> are you happy for her? >> no. i wanted her to stay. because she used to sing to me every night. i'm not going to lie.

i wanted her to stay. that's selfish. i'm a selfish one. >> 30% of the women incarcerated in l.a. county jail have a significant risk of mental health problems. according to a study conducted by the jail's department of mental health, it was also found that the majority of these women are drug abusers. >> so the bottom line, i think, is that we're dealing with a very difficult population. >> dr. michael maloney is the head of the women's mental health treatment. >> we're dealing with a group of people who really don't get mental health services that are effective in the community. so many of them drift down to the point that they get arrested. >> with 300 to 450 women receiving mental health treatment in the jail every day, officials must rely on group therapy programs to help the inmates learn how to deal with their problems when they leave jail. >> explain that to me.

>> stay off drugs if you're young and you're basically trying to be somebody in life. leave those drugs alone because if you're on drugs you can't cope. >> it sounds like all of you guys here are really seeing the impact of how drugs have influenced where you are today. >> drugs are not a coping mechanism. we have no coping skills. >> that's where i'd start over and turn myself in so i could end it all. i'm ready to quit. get away from it all. it gets old. >> inmate dina marie benz says jail provided the opportunity to come clean of the 15 years of drug addiction that threatened her and her three children. >> my 17-year-old, she understands. she gets mad at me, you know. my 5-year-old, he just wants to be with me. but that's why i'm here. i talked to him yesterday and he goes, you know where mommy is? and he says, yeah, in jail. and that's the first time i talked to him in months.

but he knows when i get out that i'll be there to see him and get him. but i can't do that until i get out. but it was a good thing. excuse me. >> inmate benz will be doing 100 more days in county jail before she can be with her family again. next, "lockup" takes you to l.a. county jail's camp hug-a-thug. will you help us find a new house for you and your brother? ♪

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in the 2000 elections california voters passed proposition 36, endorsing treatment for non-violent drug offenders. according to the bureau of justice statistics, criminal activity usually drops more than half after offenders receive substance abuse treatment. the l.a. county jail's answer to this growing trend in reducing recidivism is the biscailuz recovery center.

>> here they get a very intense, very emotional, very personal contact. and we stress accountability in everything they do here. >> often referred to as camp hug-a-thug, the recovery center encompasses a drug abuse program and a batterer program for men convicted of a domestic violent crime. >> it's generally set up for someone to a low to a medium security inmate. we look for someone who's feeling that they want to show a commitment to a program, they want to see it through. >> upon entry to the recovery center, inmates are greeted by an elaborate koi fish pond and waterfall, with housing units equipped with clean carpets, air-conditioning, and lots of windows for sunshine. the only physical remnants of jail is the perimeter fence and razor wire. >> to just be a happier person. i have a lot of hope today. i never had hope before. i know as soon as i'm done with

this program i'll be one happy person. >> 24-year-old inmate and drug addict anthony trujillo has been in the impact drug treatment program for 90 days. >> i was skeptical at first. i mean, i came in with the attitude of, you know, asking everybody, is this really going to work for me? because that's all i wanted to, do is let me know if this is going to work, what do i got to do to work it and i'll be okay. >> you have a talker that means you have to have a -- >> listener. >> listener. so you have to have communication with an open mind. agree? >> agree. >> let me ask you this. what prevents communication and an open mind? three letter word. >> ego. >> oh, my god. ego. everything going okay. so how can we prevent disunity? communication and open-mindedness. >> getting addicted to drugs is like crossing a highway. you know what i mean? it started out two lanes. when you got using drugs. but now it's like 20 lanes. and you don't know how to get back across.

>> for 44-year-old inmate david hines the impact program is helping him deal with his 20 years of drug addiction. >> i thought i was the baddest man in the world, but everybody has fears, and they let you walk through them, come back around and introduce yourself to them, and then keep on going with your life. the confidence, i'm going to tell you, they work with us like you wouldn't believe. they really do. >> yes. >> what are you going to get by being right? >> to me i would say a feeling of satisfaction. >> and why would you do drugs? >> to feel good. >> feeling satisfaction. >> feeling satisfaction. >> let me ask this. do the ends justify the means? >> no. >> 75% of the inmates enrolled at the recovery center are not

re-arrested for the same crime, according to a recent survey conducted by county officials. upon an inmate's completion of either the substance abuse or batterer's program they're given a graduation ceremony and a certificate. >> in order to break the cycle of violence is extremely difficult because you have to get honest with yourself. and that process will take you through a lot of valleys, places within you that you've never seen before. and i want to congratulate you gentlemen again on taking that journey. >> former drug addict and wife batterer james beard is the head counselor for the program. >> what we do is basically say you put yourself in that chair, you can't blame anybody. you can't blame the judge. you can't blame your wife, your mother, your father. >> ernest lazelle jewitt. [ applause ]

>> i'm not a very violent person, but i can be violent when i want to. >> like other inmates in the program, 28-year-old ernest jewett has accepted his four-month sentence in jail and says he's determined to do things differently when he gets out. >> the bad thing about being in jail is that you can't see your family. you can see your family, but you can't hold your family. you can't leave whenever you want to. but that's just a consequence of me doing what i've done. and if that's what it takes for me to get this in my head, like i said, i have a thick head. so if that's what it takes to get it through my head, so be it. >> anthony ross. [ applause ] >> 36-year-old inmate anthony ross says graduating from the

program has given him a new lease on life. >> i was going to keep on doing the same thing i was doing, you know, drinking, the whole nine yards. since i've been here i feel better. you know? i'm at peace. you know, this is anthony. i made a promise to myself to complete the program, and i got it. i got it. i got it. i'm happy. i know my wife is going to be -- she's just going to be overwhelmed. >> in the state of california alone drug treatment programs like the one at l.a. county jail are projected to save $100 million to $150 million annually. next on this special two-hour edition of "lockup," we'll take you inside l.a. county's most dangerous supermax facility, where the jail's largest riot happened. we'll also show you how sheriffs stopped the violence with their new high-tech weapons. and we'll see how inmates process out, having survived life inside l.a. county jail. [ male announcer ] if you're on medicare,

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