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." when you come to prison you have to join a gang. you have no choice. it's a must. >> once i opened the door with

the drugs i got recognition. >> many of them have this warrior mentality. >> by getting that recognition, i get power. >> my job was to go in there and kill him and went in with the intention of killing him. with power i get every one i go to. >> you're surrounded by, you know, a thousand killers. and every one of them did a stranger. >> once i control the yards i control the drug situation. i control the inmates as well. >> we were actually killing people that didn't deserve to be killed. >> this is california's san quentin state prison, one of the first prisons ever profiled on "lockup." >> for a photographer, san quentin was a really interesting place to shoot because it's the old-style tiers and the big exercise yard and there's a lot of corners and shadows and

things to attract your lens. so it was just as a photographer, it was really an interesting place to shoot. it can be a very dangerous place because it's got incredibly dangerous or infamous history as a dangerous place. >> on our first day of shooting here, we got a stark introduction to the constant security threats posed by gang warfare. >> we're basically getting ready to feed the level four, which are the maximum security inmates. tonight we're expecting some type of problems possibly. so we have extra coverage tonight to provide security. >> let's go. >> the correctional staff received a tip that a gang-related attack might occur at dinner. >> hispanic inmates, the gang members specifically, are doing what is called cleaning house. anyone that does not want to participate in their gang

activity, if they refuse, then the result is being slashed and it's usually across the face and they're marked for life. >> it doesn't matter how much staff we have, they will erupt if it's going to. >> our cameras rolled as the first group of inmates filed into the chow hall. pepper spray guns at the ready, officers carefully scan the room for any signs of trouble. >> i remember the potential riot at the cafeteria really well because we were right in the middle of it. there was not a whole lot of care taken at the time to keep us out of the line of fire. so we were right in the middle of it. that was kind of a tense thing. >> as the first group of inmates finished their meals and began to exit the cafeteria, an alarm sounds. signaling an assault or other disturbance near the chow hall.

>> get out of the way, step back. step back. >> following protocol, inmates on the yard hit the ground and those in the cafeteria take their seats as officers sprint to the scene. >> it was a tense moment when everybody hit the deck. sure enough, they found a weapon and we were right in the middle of it. >> officers catch a gang member attempting to conceal a shank, a homemade slashing weapon. this time, violence was avoided. but nowhere is gang influence more prevalent than out on the rec yards of california's prisons. >> this is a turf war here. everybody's got their own turf and they're not going to let anybody else take it from them. the inmates segregate themselves out here. and the reason being that the gangs want it that way. so a man has no choice but to go with his own type of people. >> it's all run by gangs or at least the gangs think they run the prisons, and then the

correctional officers think they run the prison. but everybody gangs up by race and you have to know where you're going. you don't want to go walking in the wrong area of the prison yard because you're on somebody else's turf. >> while inmates can segregate themselves in prison, it's not always that way in county jail. the first stop on the often long road of incarceration for gang members. >> every gang in los angeles county ends up coming here. and we just don't have enough places to segregate everybody and keep them from assaulting each other. and if you get one group that has superior numbers over the other and something sparks off a fight, it's going to be on. >> officials at the los angeles county jail told us racially segregated gangs are responsible for most of the violence

including riots, like this one captured on surveillance tape. but we met one inmate who blames the problem on the system. >> i never wanted to get involved in racial problems. when i went to prison, i didn't hate blacks. i didn't hate mexicans. i didn't hate indians. i didn't hate anybody like that. but when you go to these prisons and by the time you do ten years like me, if you're even halfway sane, it's a miracle. >> vanjlis garafolo was awaiting trial for the attempted murder of five police officers while on parole for an earlier conviction of voluntary manslaughter. >> the date i met vanjlis garafolo it was like meeting hannibal lecter with shackles. i saw his feet first and i kind of looked up i saw all the tattoos. this guy was huge, 6'3", probably about 235. i mean he was built like an nfl linebacker. he looked like a stone cold killer.

what's even more fascinating is what came out of his mouth. >> the california department of corrections is solely responsible for the madness that goes on in this prison system. and i'll tell you why, because when a big white boy like me goes to prison, he is expected to do his part for the white cause and it's the same for the blacks, the mexicans, the indians, the orientals, asians, everybody else. they're expected to go to prison and do their part. why? because the inmates who run the prisons are the inmates doing life and life without the possibility of parole and they don't give a damn about my parole date or anybody else's. and these guys doing life and life without, they're hopeless. they're so full of hate just because of the sentences they have that they don't care what kind of chaos they cause in there.

coming up -- >> we'd go for the vital areas, kidney, liver. we try to go for kill shots. >> prison gang attack methods revealed.

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pelican bay state prison sits in near pristine wilderness on the coastline of northern california.  >> we're located just miles from the oregon border just in from the coast. so we're fairly remote. we're not surrounded by nothing. >> it's no accident that pelican bay is isolated hundreds of miles from the state's major cities. >> we fight an unending battle to keep the communication from our security housing unit inmates, particularly our

gangsters, from getting back out to the streets and out of our 1,100 inmates, over 800 have been validated as gang members or associates. >> pelican bay is the toughest prison in the california prison system. it's where the worst of the worst go to. the first time we sent a "lockup" crew was weeks after they suffered their worst gang riot in history. and there was still tension in the air as the crew walked through the gates. >> the riot fought primarily between black and hispanic inmates lasted a little over 30 minutes. one inmate was killed and dozens of others were stabbed or beaten. when we returned five years later, the tension was still palpable. >> one of the interesting things about pelican bay is there really seemed to be two systems of rules, the prison administration and then the rules of the gangs. and there's this constant tension between the two. it's like a modern day sparta. they have trained themselves mentally, physically for a

wartime situation. and it feels like a war. it feels like a wartime prison, pelican bay. >> correctional staff told us that when it comes to battling gang activity, they're fighting a system that starts long before inmates arrive in prison. >> they're convinced that at early ages, at 8, 9, 10, 11 years old that gangs are the way to go. >> such was the case with epi cortina. he joined a street gang at age 11. it led to a 16-year to life sentence for murder. >> i've been pelican-bay raised. been up here going on 14 years. >> he'd been in prison since he was 19. he was 32 at the time i interviewed him. and he'd just been through years and years of just senseless violence. >> after his arrival at pelican bay, cortina, like many other hispanic gang-bangers from northern california, joined a

prison gang known as nuestra. familia. >> i walked into a war atmosphere and i was all for it. let's go, strapped on the boots and let's go. so three months after coming to pelican bay, i was assigned squad leader because squad leader is i'm in charge of educating other people on the bombs, the format, how to make knives, how to stab people, where to stab people, what would be the best times, exercising and making sure everybody's following the guidelines of our gang. right? >> i almost felt like it must have been what it was like 10,000 years ago when you have this almost tribalism. and you have to rely on your clan for protection. >> people would get stabbed because the mentality that we had out here and the way we train people within our own gang is the only time you should be fighting using your fist is to defend yourself. when we're attacking somebody, you're going to come at them with a knife, period. because, you know, it's better

to do something right the first time than having to go back and do it a second time. >> this here is a sampling of the type of weapons that we do find here at pelican bay. some of these are made out of files, nails. here's a ballpoint pen with a sophisticated spear tip at the end of it. like when they don't have access to metal, they'll resort to plastic or wood. here's a good example of what they can make out of plastic. >> plastic weapons are for emergency situations. if we're going to stab someone, we're going to come at you with steel and make sure we do the job correctly. >> traditionally what inmates like to do is to come out and stage weapons on the yard to be used in assaults later on in the yard. periodically, we search the yard. >> our cameras followed along as officers searched the pelican yard for buried weapons.

>> there's something down here. right here. >> oh, yeah, we've got one.

what happens when you take a

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[we know a thing or two because we've seen a thing or two. ♪ we are farmers. bum-pa-dum, bum-bum-bum-bum ♪ california state prison corcoran has one of the largest populations of many dangerous inmates on the west coast. our crews have visited here several times and correctional staff is always blunt about the

it may hold them in, but it

>> the specially trained officers assigned to these units are constantly working to intercept gang communications drug smuggling, and prevent illicit activities. another one of their functions is to validate an inmate's gang affiliation. >> you need three identifiers to validate a gang member. tattoos, known association with another gang member, admission and if they are a validated gang member, they are shipped off to one of three prisons throughout the state. >> those three prisons contain california's most restrictive cell blocks. they're known as security

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we have the hour's top stories. donald trump suggested the country should seriously consider profiling muslims in the u.s. as a terrorism fighting tool saying, quote,@not the worst thing to do. and thousands of people gathers sunday for a vaj ill and memorial to mark one week since a shooting happened in a pulse nightclub. now, it's back to lockup.

you would think that putting criminals behind bars would stop

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the racial divide throughout california prisons is usually blamed on gangs. and it turnsed majority on the outside into a minority on the inside. >> whites are the minority in here. we're greatly outnumbered. i'm sure you've seen that on the yard. we have a tendency to look out for each other the best we can. you would do the same with your

it's inbred in us, it's genetic you see something that's

>> no one wants to change. >> two other kern valley inmates everyone's broken up into think all these people hate,

out to the exercise yard to see part of their daily routine. we look forward to it, for sure. sunlight, it's a big deal.

it's an exercise routine, and, therefore, the race have to follow as long as they show respect. everything in prison is about an inmate bridging the racial a white guy as a crip.

so evidently i get my respect. >> because of who i run with,

have to prove myself, you know? always, no matter what. so i can't change my life now, i chose that road, so i have to be a part of that. i don't try to be black, i'm me, i'm dylan. hope is like that will kill me before one of them kills me. >> what?

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♪ "dinner!" "may i be excused?" get the new xfinity tv app and for the first time ever stream live tv, watch on demand, and download your dvr shows anywhere. the key to surviving the prison sentence at pell can bay is understanding the politics of the yard. a system put in place by the prison's gang population. >> everyone is separated by gangs, by race. you cannot just run into a certain area. you have to be so careful about where you go, how you look at someone, what handlebars you use to do chingups or push-ups. there's a series of invisible

lines that are all over that yard. and that makes for a great deal of tension. >> you feel tension in the air. when something's going to happen, you can feel the tension -- you can cut it with a knife sometimes, it's so bad. >> life here is kind of rough. you know, stabbings all the time, guys have to be real careful who he associates with. stick with your own race. i've seen people get their throat cut, i've seen people get rat packed, five guys on one, get their heads smashed in. i've seen people strangled in cells. life here is pretty treacherous. >> authorities told us that the violence is like a drug to the gangs here. >> violence for many inmates -- if the truth be known and told by them, they're addicted to it. they're so into the violence, into the experience of the

adrenaline rush of combat that that's what they want. they look for that. when your whole environment is nothing but drive byes and gangland slayings, the thrill of surviving every day is a merit badge. >> even for some of the most hardened prison gang members, the dues of belonging came at too high a cost. >> people would be put in the hat -- meaning the hit list for any agenda. for any reason. i didn't want is that to happen to me. >> when they decided to leave gang life behind, pelican bay had a place for them to go. but admittance came with a price. >> one of the areas at pelican bay is the transitional housing unit, this is where inmates who

want to opt out of the gang life divulge everything they know to the prison authorities, they then get the protection of being put away from the prison population. >> they're trying to build up some credibility with you, are you being honest with them? or are you trying to be a sleeper so you can get out there and stab one of these people who has disassociated themselves from these gangs. >> for a gang member, it's probably one of the toughest decisions they'll ever make in their life. >> it's easy to get into the gang and start doing stuff with the gang. to stipulate away from it, other gang members consider them a rat or no good. it's a tough decision for them. they have family members involved, that putting their family members in jeopardy. >> the big issues that i wrestled with was, am i going to get killed by dropping out? is my family going to get killed by dropping out?

defected from the gangs. that was my big issue, i started realizing that, am i going to get killed by staying over there? >> what seems to be the biggest problem in your life right now? >> we met jason in an anger management class inside the transitional housing unit. >> get myself on track, keeping myself on track. >> jason had to join the nazi low riders once in prison for protection. just looking at his eyes, you could see at times he almost had this 1,000 yard stare. i'm sure that war veterans have of having seen and felt the shock of so much violence. >> he's serving a life sentence for murder, told us he reached the breaking point when he was ordered to kill a fellow gang member. >> they told me if i don't do it, if i don't do the right thing and whack the guy, i would be whacked. so i started seeing that they

asked people to do stuff that they wouldn't do themselves, and they're playing people as a puppet and that's what basically they are, puppet masters. i'm not a puppet. >> one of the things i noticed in the transitional housing unit, there's a real mix of prisoners, people that previously on the main yard would have been trying to kill each other. now we're all mixing -- there were books, counselling sessions, a much less tense atmosphere from the rest of the prison. the irony, though, is that some of them still carry this weight of being snitches, of having divulged information to the prison authorities. >> i just seen a lot of the people that were involved with the nazi low riders starting to debrief. i used to look down on it, because i grew up thinking that child molesters, rapers and snitches were all in the same category. >> many of them still were a

little bit uncomfortable with that idea, especially uncomfortable about having to give over their protection now, completely to the prison authorities. they were not able any more to rely on their gang for protection. >> do i feel safe? you never can feel safe in a prison environment. i don't depend on prison administration to protect me. yeah, they're going to take steps to sure we're secure. but at the same time i'm going to fall back on what i learned in prison to make it in here. >> in some ways you feel like you hung up your balls. now you have to rely on the administration to handle things in a way you learned to handle things. now i play sports with people i was once enemies with. it's a big step.

advised. >> i've been doing this since >> i've been doing this since 1981. in and out, in and out, in and out. >> nobody ever makes parole. they all come back, come back in discharge, and go right back out there again. and we learn nothing because there's no rehabilitation in here.