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." >> you're in a jail. there's no greater punishment in the world. >> crackheads, dope fiends, rapists, murderers. >> we are all guilty until proven otherwise. >> we are america's busiest and

largest jails. l.a. county, miami-dade and new york's rikers island. we represent a real cross-section of life across the country. and each one has its own unique set of challenges. >> lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. >> got to be on point. >> lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. >> can't let your guards down for nobody. >> it's not a place to be. >> this is as close to a living hell as i think i ever want to come. >> step back behind the red line. >> everyone, bend over and touch your toes. >> if you like this type of thing, then this is the place for you. >> i have nothing now. i want to kill myself. i can't take it. >> for the uninitiated or in this case the unincarcerated, there is sometimes confusion between prison and jail. prison is only for convicted felons. jails also house convicts.

but only those awaiting transfer to prison or serving short-term sentences usually less than a year. >> listen up for your name. >> but most jail detainees have pending court cases and have been denied or are unable to make bail. >> put your stomach on the wall. stomach on the wall. hands behind your back. >> there is another type of jail detainee as well. and they're often the most dangerous. those who have just been arrested, sometimes still drunk, high on drugs, or fresh from committing a crime. >> my biggest challenge in here is dealing with all the varieties of people that come in from the streets. we have a lot of mental patients, a lot of the inmates that are arrested have psychological problems, and they haven't taken their medication for a long time. >> are there voices talking to you? >> yes, there is. >> you do hear them? >> yes, i do. >> okay. how long has the voices been talking to you? >> for a while. >> for a while.

>> sometimes they're unavoidable. you know, the people that come in here, they have nothing to lose. they're coming in here on their third strike, and they're angry at officers that arrested them. sometimes they take that aggression out on us. >> during shoots at three of the nation's largest jail systems, our crews have come to always expect the unexpected. >> this is how we wash our clothes, in the sink. >> at the miami-dade county jail, we ran into a young inmate who was washing his clothes in the sink in his cell. and he was an interesting looking kid, so we asked for an interview. >> this is for the birds, man. it's [ bleep ] for the birds. they locked up. it's for the [ bleep ] birds. >> the interview was not unlike a lot of interviews we conduct with jail inmates. it had a lot to do with lazaro complaining about conditions. >> [ bleep ]. crackers ain't playing, man. they're giving out permanent homes across the courthouse.

>> and the next thing we know, officers were running in, telling us we had to grab our gear and go. there was some kind of disturbance going on. and they were locking down the floor. >> that was a backup call you just heard. officers are responding to the fifth floor emergency. >> tenth floor. put them on their bunks. everybody on their bunks. >> fortunately it turned out it wasn't a riot and we were able to keep shooting. that's one of the things that makes jails really interesting. there really is a very strong sense that anything can happen at any time. >> and nowhere is that more true than behind the walls of the sprawling jail complex that serves america's largest city. >> while new york city is the safest large city in america,

and crime has been going down, one of the reasons that crime is going down is because the police do make a lot of arrests. and everybody who gets arrested and who doesn't get bailed out comes to us. >> get arrested in the big apple, and you're almost assured of a trip to rikers island. a 400-acre penal colony on the east river directly under the flight path of laguardia airport. connected to the mainland by a narrow two-lane bridge, the island is home to an average of 14,000 inmates in 10 different facilities. >> we patrol the meanest precincts in america. when our officers go to work every day, they know that everyone they run into is going to be a criminal. >> [ bleep ]. >> every criminal who has committed the worst act. >> bring all your property with you. >> is coming through here, if they're coming from new york city. >> they come off of the streets. they're tired. they're dirty. they're hungry. and you saw everything there. whether it was somebody who was from wall street who was charged

with fraud or whether it was the lowest low of the drug dealers. >> we get between 80 to 90 admissions a day. around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. >> what size you wear? >> 8 1/2. >> guess what? 10 is going to be your lucky number. these are air giulianis. you can have them, my brother. >> it never stops. the city never sleeps. >> don your masks. >> while some inspections are routine at all the jails and prisons profiled on "lockup," they were conducted with a militarylike show of force at rikers. ♪ first, the emergency response team marches to the cell block in full riot gear.

armed with high-voltage stun shields. they secure the area and provide an intimidating presence for any inmates who might be tempted to resist. then, a team of correctional officers moves into the cells to begin their inspections. >> the last time they came in here, took everything out of their cell and threw it. after they was done, there was 48 people's property mixed up in the middle of the floor, personal clothes, legal work. they said this is how we diss you. >> while the inspections anger many inmates, they are conducted for safety. the primary goal is to uncover weapons. and they're often successful. >> contraband weapons, approximately five inches long, sharpened metal, found it in the bed frame. >> i need instructions. 955.

>> inspection, please. >> during our stay on rikers island, one weapon that wasn't found was used in a double stabbing involving two inmates. >> yesterday at approximately 1140 hours, we had a stabbing. >> baez, a self-admitted latin king, was sitting at one table we believe was associated himself with the bloods, had his back to him sitting at another table. inmate baez removed the shank from his pocket, turned around and stabbed the inmate in the back. >> do you recall the weapon? >> yes. >> what was it? >> it was the shoe support from a work boot that was sharpened. it went in about 3/4 of an inch at which time he removed the weapon from his back and stabbed inmate baez. >> so both inmates received puncture wounds? >> yes, sir. >> to combat such jailhouse attacks, correctional officials often prosecute the offenders with new charges in addition to the ones that landed them in jail.

>> carlos baez? >> yes. >> i'm placing you under arrest for assault. place your hands behind you back. >> when he was put in the holding cell, we were absolutely amazed that he actually confessed to us. >> i stabbed one of the bloods in the back. >> we were shocked that he would admit to us on camera that he actually stabbed another prisoner. >> and when he felt it pulled it out, he attacked me and stabbed me in the lower part of my abdomen. >> the other inmate involved in the incident is also arrested and put into the holding cell next to baez. he denies being a gang member to our producer. >> i just want to know why, why he stabbed me for? for what? i don't even know him. >> he knows why because he was running. >> oning with two? >> running with some guys that were trying to set me up. that's why. >> i never even spoke to the guy. >> do you know the name of the guy you stabbed?

>> no, i don't know his name. >> you just know that he was part of a gang? >> yeah. >> did you hear what he said? is that a reason to stab somebody? >> they'll both be charged with penal 12005 which is assault in second-degree as well as criminal possession of a weapon in the fourth, found guilty and could receive 5 to 7. coming up on "lockup raw," corrections officials battle gang violence inside america's toughest jails. >> they don't know how to act like proper gangsters anymore. introducing the citi® double cash card. it lets you earn cash back when you buy and again as you pay. that's cash back twice. it's cash back with a side of cash back. the citi double cash card. the only card that lets you earn cash back twice on every purchase with 1% when you buy and 1% as you pay .

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lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. >> 10-4. lockdown, lockdown, lockdown. >> if the nation's largest jail facility is ever caught

unprepared, the result can be absolute chaos. >> 40 seconds. >> so when we visited the los angeles county jail, it was no surprise that our cameras captured one of the many drills that test the readiness of those charged with maintaining order. >> good job, guys. excellent. we had a lockdown in about a minute and 30 seconds. that's a record. >> the state of readiness, when they were doing that drill, was pretty intense. there was definitely tension in the air because a couple weeks prior, there was a significant riot that lasted about 45 minutes. and no one was killed, but someone was put in a coma from a pretty bad beating. >> the jail is completely than what it was 30 years ago. for up with thing, we have much more violence-prone inmates in our system. in the past, that was never a problem. we did not have armajor riots a the disturbances. we did not have the races fighting against one another in the jail system.

>> l.a. county jail officials told us most of that violence stems from one source. ♪ it's tripping off these [ bleep ] ♪ ♪ tripping off this [ bleep ] i'm about my riches ♪ >> almost half of our jail population is street gang members. and they are probably responsible for 70% to 80% of the crime that occurs in our jail. and nearly all of our murders have been gang related one way or another. >> and the gang bangers get younger every year. >> are you guys in gangs? >> yeah. >> what gang are you? >> south gate marijuanos. >> matthew told us he joined a street gang when he was 14. >> do you have a job outside? >> no. >> you gonna get a job? >> i don't think so, but you never know. >> how are you gonna survive? >> there's ways to survive out there. self-employed. >> i continued to question him. and he started pressing and

started finding out, trying to find answers to things, what really motivates him to do that. his gears shifted from being kind of like a goofball to, you know, you're crossing the line here with your questioning. >> what kind of things do you do as a gangster in your daily job? >> oh, no comment on that one. >> i mean, just like, i'm sure you've got an everyday thing. you guys organize, don't you? >> just kick it, get drunk and party. >> yeah. and make sure ain't nobody tripping around you. >> then he stared me down and kind of gave me that junkyard dog look, like you know, i think we're done here. >> these kids don't know how to act like proper gangsters anymore. >> when we met garafolo, the 44-year-old inmate had spent 45 years in either jail or prison. back in l.a. county on an attempted murder charge, he told us he doesn't care much for the new generation of gang bangers. >> when i was out there, i would steal cars, joyride, whatever

you want to call it. but look at the new generation. carjacking. these kids will go out, stick a gun in someone's face to go joyriding in a car and turn a misdemeanor crime into a death penalty case. because seven out of ten times, they car jack, they kill the person they steal the car from. they don't get time around guys like me anymore to tell them hey, look, stupid, you don't want to sit on death row for a crime you could have got out of jail on 24 hours on. >> it was a generation gap between gangsters. there's a code of ethics amongst killers and felons. and he felt like the new generation was not abiding by that. >> when my dad was a small-time maf ios o back east, he used to say there are thugs and gangsters. thugs come and go. gangsters are about making money and respect. and if you're going to be a gangster, there's two things you've got to know. you don't kill cops and you don't kill innocent women and children. and if you live that way, most cops will let you make a dime.

♪ >> we've had some issues with the gangs here in miami-dade county, but not to the extent of l.a. county and some of those other larger jurisdictions. >> but the miami-dade county jail faces a daunting problem of its own. the area's booming narcotics trade and the casualties in its wake. >> the crimes vary. but most of them are centered around use of drugs. >> woe don't know if they're high on drugs or going to come through and fight a bunch of people. >> we had superman come in one day. a guy dressed in a superman suit. >> we had just gotten done interviewing them about miami's drug problems and how they contribute to the city's crime. when we stepped outside and saw an officer bringing in a young man to be booked. >> retail theft. >> it turns out he was also a

prime example of someone whose drug abuse was not only leading to other crimes but stealing his life from him. >> do you want to give up drugs? >> yes. i've tried. i don't do drugs every day. i don't smoke crack every day. but when i do, i go on a binge. >> are you presently taking any kind of medication? >> crack cocaine. prozac. that's for depression. >> alphonso's drug abuse had landed him in jail so many times that it really just felt completely routine. and he seemed to know the rest of the booking procedure well enough that he could just walk himself through it. >> officer davis, process fingerprint? >> after we get through this, then you go through fingerprinting. >> i've been here about 20 times. >> alphonso even knew the best time of day to get arrested. >> at night it gets so crowded. so you've got to use the bathroom in front of people.

god knows if you've got to take a dump. by me coming here early in the morning, i think i got a big break. >> the sad thing about alphonso, he not only had an addiction that kept getting him thrown in jail, he couldn't be honest about it to his own family. his one phone call was to his mother, and it was heartbreaking. >> i'm over here, over town. i was with a friend. i was spending the night with a friend. it's a female, though. i'm so sick of lying to my mom. i feel so bad. what can she do? she ain't going to bond me out. if i call her and say mom, i'm in jail, "again? see, i told you to stay home!" i didn't want to hear all that right now. the damage has been done. >> after being processed, alphonso was finally assigned to a cell. >> and then i'll be here until court. coming up on "lockup:

raw" -- >> it's all misdemeanors. >> the women who cope. >> she's telling us y'all need help. >> bond. and raise their babies. inside america's toughest jails. ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm here we go, here we go, here we go. ♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪ ♪ nationwide is on your side ♪ mmm mmm mmm mm mmm mm mmmmmm because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup. because i make the best chicken noodle soup. for every way you make chicken noodle soup, make it delicious with swanson®.

i've been here a little over ten days. >> and what are you in for? >> trespassing. >> we met mildred rodriguez at new york's rikers island jail. she represents a rising tide of women who find themselves on the wrong side of jailhouse bars. >> i'm 32 years old. i have a daughter who i don't see because i'm using drugs. i'm using heroin, i use crack, i'm not going to lie. this is what brings you back here. >> what do you expect the city to do? >> i expect the city to stop re-arresting me. that's what i expect. i'm angry. >> the women are more emotional than men. a lot of them may be going through psychological trauma. they're separated from their families, their children.

>> every week i'm here. i'm not saying this is good because it's not good to say hey, i come to rikers island every week. it's not good to say because it's bad. it's terrible. my record is about this thick. it's all with misdemeanors. i have over 35 misdemeanors. i want them to say, we are going to give you a year's program and that's it. don't give me 30 days or 10 days, because it's not helping me. >> this young lady back here, she's telling y'all she needs help. they're throwing her in and out of here like nothing's going to help her and it's not. >> they say they pay $1,000 for each inmate a day, so where is it? >> but they can't catch no real criminal. that's how i feel, i'm being honest. they got murderers out there, the drug dealers. they will pick up the drug addict instead of the person that giving it to them and i think that's totally unfair. >> drug-related arrests and anger at the system were common themes among most of the women we met in jail. >> we are threatened with everything.

threatened to get in our bunks. threatened to get things out of our hair that may, just make us feel a little bit more feminine. >> repeat offender kimberly had just been sentenced to four years in prison for sales of a controlled substance. with her time at the l.a. county jail nearing an end, she let loose on the staff. >> i feel like the sheriff's department is organized crime itself anyway. they organize a way to disenfranchise us at every step. if we stick together, they break our pods up. i was in a whole other pod. all of a sudden i'm in this pod over here. why? because we all got along. >> hey, ladies. >> there are women here that are actually innocent and we are all treated guilty until proven otherwise. >> how come you are all in there? are you having a party in there? >> l.a.'s women's facility wasn't all doom and gloom. this group found a creative way to play volleyball with a toilet paper net held up by sanitary pads.

>> they had to stretch it pretty far to connect it to the wall and every five seconds it would fall down and have three or four sanitary napkins smashed up against the cinder block wall to try to keep it up. just goes to show you that when you are inside, if you need to distract yourself from the day-to-day craziness of being locked up, you will do just about anything to entertain yourself. >> as surprising as this jailhouse pickup game was, our crew found another unexpected sight back at rikers island. incarcerated mothers, raising their babies. >> she loves me a lot. she's a good baby. >> georgena and her baby were vanessa were housed at rikers maternity cell block, a place for inmates who have babies in jail. >> under new york state law, a woman who gives birth while in custody has a legal right to

keep the baby with her for up to a year. as long as they're not neglectful or abusive of the child. >> being in that nursery was probably one of the saddest places i can remember on rikers island. it was a real slice of reality. and i remember the crew and i talking about how sad we felt for these children. >> at this stage, they don't know where they are. all they know they are with their mother and that's it. they do not know where they are except that mommy is there. >> this young mother who asked that we not reveal her name was with her infant daughter. >> it's nice. nice to be able to take care of her. the disadvantage is that she doesn't see the outside. she doesn't hear the dogs barking, the cars going by. >> what's your greatest fear for her?

>> losing my child. that's the only thing. i face a lot of time. that's my greatest fear. coming up on "lockup: raw" -- >> i call it the drama floor. >> gender bending inmates. >> we cut up sheets and towels and stuff like that to look like dresses. >> and jailing the mentally disturbed. >> he didn't seem violent but he was definitely someone you would not want to be left in a room alone with. that's right. it's just that i'm worried about you know "hidden things..." ok, why's that? no hidden fees, from the bank where no branches equals great rates.

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hello, i'm betty nguyen. isis has executed peter kasig captured in syria last year. his death was revealed in a new video today. president obama calls it an act of pure evil. dutch investigators have collected crucial debris and human remains from malaysian airlines flight 17 to be examined in the netherlands. the plane was shot down in an area controlled by russian-backed rebels. we'll have more news later, but now it's back to "lockup." due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised.

>> i'm not doing something, somebody will find something for me to do. most of the time it's stupid stuff. better just find something for yourself. when we met joseph regan at one of the massive kitchens at new york city's rikers island jail, he was serving 90 days for misdemeanor assault and penny larceny. >> they're not always as clean as they should be. and you got cockroaches and stuff in here like that. but, you though, didn't see anybody die lately so i guess they get away with it. >> while he may never get a job as a rikers island spokesman, he offered a plug for life here. >> if you like being told what to do, if you like being told what to eat, when to sleep, go

to the bathroom, scratch your ass, if you like taking a chance getting your ass kicked or getting killed, then this is the place for you. >> like many other inmates here, reagan has had multiple arrests. >> most people that come to jail stay in jail, regardless if they go home or not. they come back and come back. they end up spending the rest of their life in jail. >> while inmates can sometimes be in denial about the circumstances that brought them to jail, reagan was crystal clear. >> it's not that we don't have the knowledge to do different things. i know carpentry, i know masonry. it's not like i don't have the ability or skills. it all comes down to choice. i just choose not to. for various reasons. lack of discipline. self-confidence. self-destructive nature. not that i can't do it. it's just that i don't. >> but not everyone believes jail is a choice. some feel they are victims to a probation system that's all too

easy to violate and keeps sending them back. >> i was told by my first probation officer, after reading the conditions of my probation, if you can do this without me violating it, you will be lucky. this was the first time i met this man, the first time i had been on probation. he was very right. >> eric johns' original charge was for sexual battery. after serving four years in prison, he was released on probation. but when a urine test proved positive for marijuana, he was back in the miami-dade county jail. >> i am a three-time loser. this makes my third time. once you are in the system, you will be back. >> eric johns was definitely a loner in the jail system, but he developed his own method of survival. he told us how during his first stay in jail he sent a message to ward off any predatory inmates. >> the first time i came in, the first thing i did was i looked for the biggest guy in the unit

and decked him. that's how i lost my front teeth. i got my teeth knocked out. but, they said at that point, either that guy is crazy or he's bad, but we're going to leave him alone. he just ain't worth it. it worked. i am a caucasian male, i speak english. i'm educated. i'm the oddball and i realize that. actually, this looks like one of the better meals. you should be here on pigeon night. i think they call it chicken night everywhere else. there is nothing in here that fascinates me or makes me happy. this is as close to a living hell as i think i ever want to come. >> seeing many of the same inmates cycle in and out of their facilities is not uncommon for most jail officials. nor is it unusual for certain types of inmates to be housed together, as we discovered during a visit to the fifth floor of the los angeles county jail. >> i call it the drama floor because you get a mix of everything. you get a mix of general

population from petty theft to burglary to the homosexual inmates. normally, they are separated from everyone else simply because a lot of times they will be abused. there is a lot of homosexual inmates that can fool you. they are gender bending and it's hard to tell. >> my name is tasha. my last name is swain. >> 37-year-old bernard "tasha" swain was serving a nine-month sentence for a parole violation. >> how do you make money on the streets? >> prostitution and selling drugs. >> one of the other things that bernard did on occasion inside l.a. county jail is to put on beauty pageants. like a peacock, so he wanted to show off his feathers. >> you know the miss america pageant? we do them in here but we do them for the boys and we have for girls and boys, the school boys. the vogue and all that kind of

stuff like that. it's a variety of things you can run for. it's not just beauty. we cut up sheets and towels and make little dresses and you know. we destroy state property to make the outfits. >> do you make them look better? >> yes, actually. look at my face. >> we explored another special housing unit at l.a. county as well. the mental health ward where we encountered one of the most unforgettable scenes ever shown on "lockup." >> there was one gentleman in particular who i could barely see him because there was so much graffiti all over his cell door. and all over his walls, it looked like hieroglyphics. >> a lot of the writing on the door is human feces and he's also combined a little mustard on it for coloring. that's what he's writing with on the actual door. he's been here for a long time. so he continually works on it. >> then i saw the inmate inside. he was completely naked except for cellophane over his private

parts. seemed very gentle. didn't seem violent. wasn't pounding on the doors. he wasn't hurting himself. but he was not someone you would want to be left in the room alone with. coming up on "lockup: raw" -- >> if anyone is caught with contraband you will be arrested. >> we found two empty balloons. >> visiting day inside america's toughest jails. ♪ ♪ ♪ let us be lovers, we'll marry our fortunes together ♪ ♪ i've got some real estate here in my bag ♪ ♪ it took me four days to hitch-hike from saginaw ♪ ♪ "i've come to look for america" ♪ boy: once upon a time, there was a nice house that lived with a family.

one day, it started to rain. the house tried to keep out all the water, but water got inside and ruined everybody's everythings. the house thought she let the family down. they just didn't think it could happen. they told the house they would take better care of her... always. announcer: protect what matters. get flood insurance. come from all walks of life.

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low blood sugar,kidney problems, and increased bad cholesterol. common side effects include urinary tract infections, changes in urination, and runny nose. ♪do the walk of life ♪yeah, you do the walk of life need to lower your blood sugar? ask your doctor about farxiga and visit our website to learn how you may be able to get every month free. when someone is arrested and they go to jail, they can be there from anywhere from a few hours to over a year. in the jails that we filmed in, the average time was about six weeks. so, the only bright spot for these inmates is a visit from a family member or a friend. >> visitation is an important

right for inmates but it also poses a security risk. it's one of the chief ways drugs and other contraband can be smuggled into the jail. >> at new york city's rikers island, we found the correctional staff wasn't about to let that happen. >> good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. welcome to new york city department of corrections. >> my name is officer p. hunt, 9865. i'm a member of the k-9 unit, narcotics unit. today we're going to do a narcotics search. this is where we board the bus and look for any type of illegal substance. crack, cocaine, marijuana. heroin. if you have it, now is the time to put it on the floor or deposit it in that box over there. >> when leaving the bus to enter the jail facility, visitors are not only given a blunt warning about contraband, they're handed a number to correspond with their seat. then a drug-sniffing dog boards the bus. >> so my dog boards that bus and starts scratching seat number three, i'm going to look over

and say that's who we must search. >> right here, we found two empty balloons. now, a lot of people what they like to do is stuff either the marijuana, the crack cocaine inside these balloons. right here you have seat number 10 and 11, so right now i'm going to request for the officers to search whoever was sitting at seat number 10 and 11. they may still have something on them. >> an off-camera search of the visitors in seats 10 and 11 revealed no contraband and they denied knowledge of the balloons. but inside the reception area, all the visitors were given yet another warning. >> okay, listen up. penal law 205, a "d" felony. if anyone is caught with contraband, they will be arrested. so look down into your pocketbooks and wallets, i'm not saying that you have anything, but if you happen to find something by chance, you can put it in this amnesty box right here. >> we want to make the message clear. this is your last chance. drop it on the bus, drop it on

the floor. we want you to visit your people but we have people that want to try to sneak drugs into the jail. >> security measures are equally tight at the los angeles county jail. once inside, visitors and inmates are separated by glass partitions and are strictly monitored. >> general population, you get 15 minutes four days a week. that's it. they're on the timers. we push a button, they start up. it clicks when it goes off. and you got to share that space with all those other inmates. they have 15 minutes. as soon as that timer clicks off, there's no warning. it just goes off. so they will be sitting there in the middle of conversation maybe saying i love you to someone, >> how's my mom doing? >> and boom, and there's no sound. >> that sound you just heard clicking is one of the rows shutting off. so that means we got inmates that are ready to return to their housing location. ♪ ♪ it's hard for a black man

♪ they say we don't know how to act, man ♪ >> when we met bernard jones at the miami-dade county jail, the aspiring rapper was anticipating a visit from his girlfriend. he had been incarcerated nearly four years while appealing a life sentence for armed robbery. >> what's your best moment of being here? >> it's hard for me to say that because i have a problem keeping my hands off my areas. the best moment of the week is when i can get me a visit. so i can see a little something because it gets hard in here. i get tired of seeing men every day. so when i get chance to see a beautiful woman -- can't look at the officers too much. that's against the rules. if she is beautiful, i ain't even got the right to tell her, you're beautiful, how you doing? i got to wait to see something of my own. tell her you're beautiful. that's when i get my moment on thursdays and saturdays. thursdays and saturdays.

>> well, i think the visit means a lot for him, because if i don't come or no one don't come, he's going to be mad. >> bernard's girlfriend angela has only know him behind bars. it turns out they had met four months earlier on a blind date of sorts. >> my brother is locked up here, too. and he put him on the phone one day thinking we wasn't going to click. but we did. >> what does he say to you when you come in? does he say, thank god, thank you so much? >> he love me. i'm so beautiful. thank you for coming. thank you for being by my side. that type of stuff. >> you're going to have to go back. try it again. >> the transmitter. >> oh, that's what it is. >> you want me to go back in? >> angela was so nervous and then our microphone set off the alarm system. but she had good reason to be excited.

at miami-dade, inmates without disciplinary problems are allowed one contact visit a month. >> are you excited? >> huh? >> are you excited about seeing him? >> yeah, this is my first time being able to touch him. yeah. >> angela was literally hyperventilating. she was overwhelmed with emotion. after four months they would finally get a chance to touch each other. we didn't really know what to expect from the visit. but they had both obviously been anticipating this meeting and the intensity of that moment was very powerful. >> you look pretty. all that for me?

>> baby, i love you. i do. >> today is the first time that we have to touch each other. i want you to know that this day will never be forgotten. i love you, baby, and i always will. >> come closer, please. >> but there's a catch to the contact visits at the miami-dade county jail. >> come closer to me. >> i can't. >> why? >> everybody else is close. >> when there is a contact visit, the couple can only have contact at the beginning and the end of their time together, just quick hug, that's it. bernard was very aware of this. i don't think angela was. >> why you can't sit close to me? >> jail officers are strict because of a history of past infractions. >> don't do that. >> surprise inspections like

this one by miami's k-9 team often uncover contraband on visitors. >> i find marijuana and cocaine all the time. one visitor that came to this jail last year, female, she came to see her boyfriend, i found 12 balls wrapped in plastic and she had it in her body cavities. ba plastic. and she had it in her body cavities. and the alert was given in that area. and you know, we are not allowed to strip them, but we pat them down. and we found one little ball in her bra. so that gave us probable cause for an arrest. >> but for bernard and angela, the tight constraints make their first contact visit bittersweet. >> i need you to know that. sometimes it ain't nothing we have control of. all right? but we have got to follow the rules. you understand? >> yes. >> that's what i need you to do. >> we will make it work. we will because it's not easy

being with someone in jail. it's really not. i'm happy being with him, but it's not easy, really not. coming up on "lockup: raw" -- >> i was in the street hustling. i never had a regular job in my life. that's what i'm trying to tell you. i never had a regular job. >> one woman finds hope in a jailhouse bakery. nouncer ] the rhythm of life. [ whistle blowing ] where do you hear that beat? campbell's healthy request soup lets you hear it in your heart. [ basketball bouncing ] heart healthy. [ m'm... ] great taste. [ tapping ] sounds good. campbell's healthy request. m'm! m'm! good.®

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♪ fifty omaha set hut ♪ losing feeling in my toes ♪ ♪ nothing beats that new car smell ♪ ♪ chicken parm you taste so good ♪

one of the most unlikely sights we found on new york city's rikers island was the jail's huge bakery. here, inmates work alongside civilian bakers to help feed the jail's 14,000 residents. >> we make 88,000 loaves a week. every inmate has to get four slices of bread per meal per day. we use bread in the facility

used to feed the employees. so we make a lot of bread here. >> they gave us a couple of loaves and a huge crock of butter. we slathered this butter on loaves of the bread and it rivaled any bakery in new york. >> inmate rhonda was hoping that the bakery would help turn her life around. >> when i first came in here i wanted to hurt myself, i was really depressed. i was, like, going crazy. oh, my god, my records are messed up now. i don't know what to do. i got myself into the bakery. keep myself busy. and i love the bakery. >> ever worked in a bakery before? >> no, i never worked outside. i always been in the streets, hustling. i never had a regular job in my life. that's what i'm trying to tell you. i never had a regular job.

>> rhonda was serving eight months on a drug possession charge. >> i was working in the streets. some guy approached me. i thought it was a date because i work in the streets. so he gives me the money and asked where can i get drugs and i sent him to the drug dealer. i mean, he gave me the money, i went to the dealer, gave him the stuff, one crack and well, you before you know it. they got me and him, my first felony. >> she told our producer she had worked as prostitute for the past 14 years. >> i didn't like myself doing it. i wasn't too happy about it but i had no choice. i had no money, i had no nothing. >> how many years did you do that? >> since i was 21. >> rhonda hopes the skills she has picked up in the bakery will give her a second chance as a mother. >> got a daughter? >> yes, she's 14. she's with her father's mother in florida. >> what's her name? >> roseanne.

>> she writes to you? >> yeah. >> what does she write? >> saying that she loves me, she misses me. i feel like crying right now. it's all right. >> are you all right? >> yeah. okay. i miss my daughter. >> i know you do. i know you do. all right. >> my heart went out to her because whenever prisoners begin to talk about their children, it is the one very sensitive spot in their lives. and no matter what they may have done to get them to a jail, to prison, they still are very touched, and love their children. >> good thing is that you got a lot out of being here, right? >> yes. ever since i've been in here for several months, doing my eight months, i feel good now. i just thank god that i'm in here, i'm glad.

because when i was in the street, i started smoking that stuff and it didn't help me. didn't get me anywhere. got me into trouble. it got me in here. but now i learned my lesson, ain't touching it no more. i want my life back together. >> i felt that i was going to commit crimes to the day i died. i hate the government, society, america, slavery. all the excuses you could think of until i started to just take accountability for my own actions and responsibility for what i had done to my life. >> scott randolph was another rikers inmate anticipating his release. when we met him, he was serving a year for petty larceny and violating parole. >> i just spiraled out of control as far as criminality goes. i've been back and forth a few times, mostly for drug activity. trying to make money hustling in the street. >> but randolph took advantage of the jail's writing program and had hopes of becoming a journalist. >> we publish the "rikers

review which is published by the inmates for the inmates. it was extremely helpful. it gave me a lot of computer skills, marketable skills. so i'm looking forward to trying to utilize that when i get down. >> the prison journal included one of his poems. >> can we read a little bit of your poem? >> all right. th this one is called "hold this." grip these words as if your embrace alone will help me save my life so that i might live to give my tomorrows as payment for yesterday's debts. >> randolph says the poem is his vision for a new life. >> the future conceals hopes and happiness yet to feel. with this you present a fresh foundation on which to rebuild. the peace i seek is real. i reach for your compassion strong as steel. this is my truth that you feel. may you cherish my conscious. hold this. that's it

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 have never seen. "lockup:raw." >> it's a grinding wheel. all you can hear is a rut. it's a circle. a death trap inside. >> they're the inmates who may never know freedom again.