>> prison officials say nearly half of those paroled return to prison within the first year. that's our report. thanks for watching. i'm john seigenthaler. 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." it's a world where the threat of danger dictates every action and every decision. >> i was holding his head on the ground, digging one of his eyeballs out of him.

i was having technical difficulties with that. >> a world that "lockup" producers and camera crews explore on a regular basis. >> when we walk into a prison with our camera crews, inevitably we attract attention. but sometimes it's not the kind of attention you want to attract. >> we don't need you all around here no more. >> while shooting in a prison is very controlled for the most part until all hell breaks loose. >> when our producers traveled to alaska, they quickly realized they were about to enter a prison unlike any other. >> i would argue that the spring creek correctional center is probably the most beautiful prison in the united states. we're located adjacent to resurrection bay. we have mountains. we have a river behind us. we have a glacier above us. the setting is just perfection. >> inside the walls of spring creek, natural beauty gives way to the harsh reality of a

maximum security penitentiary. >> we are the end of the road for the state of alaska, department of corrections. the worst behaved prisoners end up here. >> those that pose the greatest threat to other inmates and staff are segregated in house one, the lockdown unit. >> basically, minimum rights. minimums. they are in their cells for 23 hours a day. >> on the day we wanted to interview them, house one inmate antonio robertson, was in an especially foul mood. >> [ bleep ], [ bleep ] >> hey, calm down. calm down. >> every one of you [ bleep ] -- i want to start with i want to tell her, dude, you got -- >> tell her we need more food. >> what do you want to know? >> roberson, serving a 60 year sentence for murder, had spent most of the last two years in house one. >> why are you in there? >> in house one? it's a long story. i been being assaulted and so i assault people back. okay? i'm about taking care of my stuff.

i refuse to let myself be assaulted and not fight back. >> roberson not only fights with other inmates. he fights with staff, as well. >> i was disrespected. i decided to make these guys do a cell extraction. >> days before our interview, the prison's correctional emergency response team had to forcibly remove roberson from his cell for refusing to follow orders. the cell extractions are videotaped by the prison for legal reasons. >> this was authorized by the superintendent. >> extraction team officers always prepare for anything the inmate might have in store for them. >> we have an advice if he has prepared feces and urine for us. >> because they disrespected me, i'm just cuff up roberson. they want to talk all that mess they want to talk all that mess in front of all these prisoners.

you want to cuff up. i said, no, i don't want to cuff up. no i'm not going to cuff up. you disrespected me. we're going to do this. >> with roberson still refusing orders, the extraction team disperses pepper spray into his cell. but it appears to have little effect. >> the stuff they used on me was regular o.c., the cayenne pepper stuff. it does burn but i've gotten used to it already. i knew it was going to hurt but i did anyway. i am doing a life sentence. there is no way i am going to let an officer disrespect me in front of another prisoner. >> a second round of pepper spray floods the cell. roberson, however, stands firm. >> i think you guys are hurting yourselves more than me.

>> moments later, the team rushes the cell. the lead officer activates an electronic stun machine capable of delivering a 50,000 volt shock. temporarily incapacitated, roberson is finally removed from his cell and cuffed. roberson is then taken to a holding area to rinse the pepper spray from his eyes and face. >> oh, my god.

are you guys just going to leave me here forever? you should at least be proud that i fought back. i wasn't [ bleep ] >> everybody okay? thumbs up, thumbs up. >> ain't nobody really got hurt. well, i didn't get hurt, because i didn't try. i'm not trying to really get hurt until i'm ready to get hurt. if i do get hurt, well, that's just one of the consequences of doing battle. >> not far from roberson's cell is an inmate also known to treat prison like a war zone. >> most of my interests are like firearms and stuff. this is one of my doodles. >> that's a pretty detailed doodle. >> well, i have plenty of time on my hands. >> for inmate, john bright, plenty of time means a 99-year sentence for murder. >> i got in trouble for being a hit man for organized crime. i thought organize crime was cool.

i thought drug dealers were cool. i watched scarface 20 times. i bought the video when it cost $100, 1984, the year it came out. i watched it 100 times, over and over again. >> bright claims to be wrongfully convicted but he doesn't deny his taste for violence. >> i never killed anyone. i'm a fighter. i'm not a hit man, a murderer or a back stabber. i'm a fighter. i've been in a fight in bravo mod. i've been in a fight in charlie mod. i've been in a fight in delta mod. i've been in a fight on the rec yard. i don't go say, hey, i'm looking for someone to get in a fight with. this guy looks like a good candidate. i'll be watching tv one day trying to be nonaggressive, nonconfrontational. here comes mr. idiot inmate, crack smoking child molester, and changes the tv channel. well, if i get into an argument with the guy, he is going to want to fight. if we get in a fight, he is going to providence hospital. i'm going to house one. >> and bright has sent fellow inmates to the hospital. >> he got in a fight with a

prisoner. he bit his finger off. >> i got a hold of one of his fingers. when i seen i could crush through the bone i got a better grip, and bit about a third of his right index finger off. he started screaming. he got up. he was bleeding all over, i spit his finger on the floor. >> though bright bit off the inmate's finger, he didn't succeed in what he really set out to do. >> i was holding his head on the ground, digging one of his eyeballs out. i have been having technical difficulties with that, trying that the last couple of times. >> which is what? >> popping their eye out. i mean, i beat on him and broke him. so i decided to try blinding one, seeing if that makes him understand to leave me alone. >> during our interview, bright indicated that he still maintains hope in prison and if he ever loses it, there could be real trouble. >> if i woke up tomorrow and decided i'm going to live here and never go home and never have a life, i would be killing people. if i decide this is what i got coming and there is nothing to

live for and they are not going to let me out, they would have to weld my door shut forever. >> though he's an intimidating presence, bright maintains he's really nothing to worry about. >> the littlest guy here is not scared of me. i don't intimidate anybody. i'm like a gummi bear. what was that? a marshmallow. >> you're a marshmallow? >> a marshmallow. i'm a combat marshmallow but i'm a marshmallow. coming up on "lockup: raw." >> cracked his ribs, jaw, broke his collarbone too. >> the ghastly results when inmates unleash their rage on correctional staff. >> i broke my tv, made a couple of shanks and assaulted him. nearly half a million cars were stolen in 2012, but for every car stolen, 34 people had their identities stolen. identity thieves can steal your money, damage your credit, and wreak havoc on your life. why risk it when you can help protect yourself from identity theft with one call to lifelock, the leader in identity-theft protection?

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shooting in a prison is a totally unique experience. but things can go to hell real

fast. you sort of have to be on your toes. >> i haven't met a correctional officer who hadn't been involved in some sort of altercation or hadn't been stabbed or beat up by an inmate. it's part of the job. >> blink of an eye, something can go wrong. blink of an eye you can lose your life or you can be crippled for life. it really shocked me how cruel and emotionless these people can be. because they're humans, but they are real hard inside. >> at the holman correctional facility in alabama, we met inmate kenny wilson. he was housed in the prison's administration segregation unit. >> i had about five or six charges. saying. my most biggest charge is

dealing with a teenager, which i was 16 and she was like 15, i believe. i ended up, know what i'm saying, just dealing with both of them, the mom and the daughter. came in 15 years, and i got 15 more. >> originally convicted of rape and theft, wilson earned his second 15-year sentence while behind bars after he brutally beat a corrections officer. >> ended up cracking his ribs, his jaw. think i did something to his hips, too. broke his collarbone, too. to me it wasn't no thing, it was just prison. you don't come here and work here and think it's cake. no, he ain't die. he just won't be a correction officer no more. >> despite his attitude, some at holman are trying to help wilson turn his life around. >> i've known kenneth for

several years. a long time. he's a young man with a lot of anger problems. he acts out through his anger. that's what we're trying to deal with now. >> i got a bad anger problem, know what i'm saying? angry because i'm in prison. i'm angry because i ain't with my family. i'm angry because of the way they treat you, the things they do to you. it ain't never a happy day in prison. >> at the time of our visit, wilson had just completed an anger management program that deputy warden tony patterson arranged for him to take in his cell. >> he needs to grow up. immaturity. you know. but he's working on it. >> i got kids, man. everybody going to change one day. >> for wilson, change is essential. most of his sentence for assaulting the officer will overlap with his original sentence. but just a day after we interviewed him, wilson's anger surfaced again. when he saw our crew on the exercise yard, he greeted them

with an obscene gesture. >> what are the hand signs for? >> one [ bleep ], y'all, two, retire. we don't need y'all around here no more. your time up. >> some days they like us. some days they don't want to see us. i think that's kind of a function of being in prison. you're mostly pissed off all the time anyway. if you can take it out on the film crew, why not. >> though wilson may enjoy his freedom again, it's too late for one other inmate whose anger has had disastrous consequences. >> my name is jesus garcia, i have been incarcerated for nearly 12 1/2 years. i'm incarcerated for first degree murder and i have life plus 26 years to serve. >> when we met jesus garcia at the penitentiary of new mexico he had recently been involved in the bloody assault of two officers. >> leading up to that day there had been incidents where they messed with me. that was the third time. i said, that was it. that's enough.

i broke my tv, made a couple shanks and assaulted them. assaulted one of them. i got him, and then another officer came to his rescue and obviously trying to defend myself, i assaulted him, too. >> they were slashed around the head, neck, came very close to the jugular on one of the officers. >> i remember running into the pod. there was an inmate between both of them and they were both being stabbed. >> aaron bell rushed to aid his fellow officers moments after the assault began. >> i hit the inmate, tried to get him by his arm, and i slipped. and i didn't realize what i slipped on was all blood. >> it took a couple of minutes before we got other officers in there to respond, pull jesus off and get medical attention to the officers. >> i was covered from basically my neck down with blood. it wasn't the inmate's blood, it was my fellow officer's blood. >> had that guy not been there to save them, i probably would have killed them.

i mean, who's to say? if he would have died, would i have felt bad or had remorse? maybe. maybe. >> the matter of fact way that he talked about attacking the officers was really scary. it made you realize what a -- what a dangerous place a prison is. >> garcia went on to give us a chilling insight into the mind of an inmate bent on spilling the blood of prison staff. >> actually, i don't regret my actions that day. it was all to make a point. i mean, i could be the nice guy i've tried to be for all these years or i can be that kind of person. i look at it like this. those guys i did that to, they're people that just don't get it. i mean, there are some people that you can reprimand by words, some people you can encourage. there are other people that you have to beat to death.

next on "lockup: raw" -- >> if you step out of bounds and disrespect somebody, you better expect that same disrespect back to you. >> cellmates in one of the toughest prisons school a producer on the art of survival. >> if you step on a man's foot, he may very well go back to his house and sharpen a knife and come back and decapitate you.

it was built to handle the toughest of all criminals. its inmate population includes charles manson and some of the nation's most violent prison gangs. "lockup" crews have also been frequent guests at california state prison corcoran. >> you might have to fight. you might have to kill. you might have to stab. you never know. it depends on the situation. >> a lot of times it's just

fistfights out here. but i would say maybe every other month we get a righteous stabbing. when they do stab each other, they go for the kill. they don't just stab each other to play around. >> every morning you wake up you dealing with a thousand different attitudes. you never know what could happen on that certain day. all you can do is think the worst and hope for the best. >> we met two inmates on the yard at corcoran who are much more pro-active when it comes to surviving life in this powder keg. they gave our crew a tutorial on how they do it. >> some of the rules that you want to live by behind these walls is you want to give everybody the same respect that you expect to receive from them. >> without order we have anarchy. when we have anarchy, people die here. >> robert morales is serving 35 years to life for burglary under california's three strikes law. his cellmate, zachariah guzman, has a 16-year sentence on several burglary and drug-related charges. >> you step out of bounds and disrespect somebody, you better

expect that same disrespect back to you. you don't know in what amount that disrespect is going to be. you can have words with somebody. you better clean it up later. >> if you step on a man's foot, for instance, this man is doing 275 years and he doesn't give a [ bleep ] the sun don't shine. and you don't apologize. he may very well go back and sharpen a knife and come and decapitate you. and it's happened. it's happened in prison. i have seen it dozens of times over the 30 years i've been incarcerated. >> guzman and morales warned that on this yard, even jogging around the track can have fatal results if you don't know the rules. >> when you get too close to somebody on the track, you cough, let them know you're there, especially if you're running and there's a man walking in front of you, you want to yell out "track." because he's liable to perceive some kind of threat and turn around and nail you. either with a knife or with a fist. every man that runs up to me even friend. first thing i look at their hands. i don't know if they're going to kill me. i don't trust anybody in here. this place breeds it's conducive to paranoia. i always look at people's hands. this is prison.

you can't trust anybody here. >> can you even trust your own cell mate? >> yep. because when you live with a person, 24 hours a day, you build up a brotherhood, a sense of -- you build up a rapport that you don't have with your family. and you're both dependent on each other for survival. and you have -- there is an unwritten code that if your cellie is attacked, then you are attacked. the honor of one is the honor of all. if he's touched, then i'm involved. and so we're a team. we're a team. we're a force to be reckoned with. so you choose your cellies carefully. >> as their survival depends on their bond, the two men must be extremely sensitive of each other while living together in a tiny cell. >> the space here is kind of small. no real room to exercise. i come off my bed. i got to step on his stuff in

order to get down. so i have to ask him politely to move his stuff if i want to come down off my rack in the morning time. >> we use this privacy curtain that gives you the illusion you're in another room when you have to use the restroom. >> these are not allowed. we make these on our own. >> morales had a final message for those on the outside. he wanted them to know that the danger lurking behind the walls of corcoran could someday strike close to home. >> society doesn't understand the suffering that goes on behind these walls. i think that the greatest fear that the public should have is that some of these people are going home and if they go home and they're angry young men they have been traumatized, they have been brutalized, they've been desensitized, they've been dehumanized. they have no regard for the sanctity of life. when they get out there you're going to meet these guys in an alley one day. if he asks you for your wallet and you don't give it to him, he is going to callously pull out a gun and shoot you dead because he's been taught that in here. that to be sensitive is to be weak.

when the economy took a downturn, this printer saw the benefit of taking small owners and working more business to business. find out how going small saved his company. and the ceo of 1-800-got-junk with advice on how your business can clean up. that and more coming up next on "your business." >> announcer: small businesses are revitalizing the economy