>> 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 we've never seen. "lockup: raw." california state prison corcoran, home to hundreds of the state's most violent and infamous offenders hosted "lockup" crews in 2000 and 2005. >> right before i walked in, i had to sign a document that kind of really made me think twice. it basically said that in an event that there is a hostage

situation inside the prison walls, they will not negotiate for your life and you know the risk that you're taking when you walk in. while at corcoran, you constantly hear these alarms going off. you never are sure what's going to happen in this place. then when you hear those alarms and everyone dropping on the ground, and you've got those rifles appearing out of the towers, immediately it takes your breath away for a second. >> in most cases, the alarm sounds when a fight has broken out between inmates. though these incidents are usually brought to a stop in minutes, they always pose serious danger to the responding officers and our crews. >> while at corcoran, there was one instance, we were doing pretty much routine cell search. we were following along, they had the dogs, so it was a very controlled environment. we were in one of the pods in the cells. then right in the middle of it

we heard the ennh, ennh, ennh, you know and like we saw the guards. guards didn't say anything. they just started sprinting. so, i'm like i'm going. >> on the ground. get on your stomachs. >> inmates know when alarms sound they are required to lie on the ground. otherwise correctional officers might target them as combatants. >> by the time we got our cameras onto it, they were zip tied up and face down and the whole yard of like about 600 inmates were completely down on the ground. >> okay, you can get up. >> so officer mitchell, what happened just now?

>> basically what we had was two guys, and one doing horseplay get a little bit heavy. if we allow things like that to continue what's going to happen is they are going to start fighting. possibility of other people getting involved. >> though the alarm call at corcoran ended peacefully, our cameras encountered a different situation in northern california's pelican bay state prison. >> having a routine yard release. >> our producer was conducting an interview with lieutenant ben grundy while a second camera was shooting routine footage on the yard below. then suddenly -- >> there is an alarm in that building right there. >> our cameras search for any signs that the trouble is spreading outside to the exercise yard. >> this is an actual alarm because nobody's waving us off yet. something is going on inside.

>> what might be happening? >> probably an assault on someone coming out of their cell. some type of a cell fight or maybe a slashing. >> officers subdued six inmates involved in the fight. one of them was slashed with a homemade weapon. fortunately, this incident was nothing like the deadly events of february 3rd, 2000. >> the day they had the big riot i was standing in this exact spot. >> on that rainy day joshua voss, a newcomer to pelican bay was down on the recreation yard with scores of other prisoners. many of them were wearing rain gear, not only as protection from the elements but to hide dozens of homemade weapons. >> i noticed over here some people started stabbing each other. >> this surveillance footage reveals a group of southern mexican gang members unleashing a vicious coordinated attack against a group of black inmates. the beginning of california's worst prison riot.

>> i had looked around and all over the yard there was fighting, stabbings going on. >> doug burrell and dozens of his fellow officers tried to subdue inmates with pepper spray and tear gas. every time it seemed the staff had the situation under control, another fight broke out. >> looked like the movie "braveheart," but it was the real deal. >> they started firing shots, so everybody that wasn't involved in the riot laid on the ground. >> but even the gunfire raining down from pelican bay security towers did not quell the riot until one of the inmates was killed. 15 others were wounded. >> after we were done i was cleaning blood off the walls and off the floors and benches in here for a good hour. >> pelican bay's worst riot was fueled by the inmates' impulse for violence. and many of those inmates ended up here, the security housing

unit, or the shu. >> inmates that were placed into the shu housing unit were placed in here for the most part because of violence, and that violence could be against other inmates, or against officers. >> it was here in pelican bay's most secure unit we came across perhaps the prison's most dangerous inmate. >> my name is scanvinski hymes. i got the name, my mother, she wanted me to have a name no other black man in america would have. >> hymes was originally sent to prison for possessing a weapon in a youth facility. at the time our cameras profiled him in 2000 he had been locked up more than 12 years. almost half his life. >> everything is the same every day. nothing really changes too much. wake up in the morning, eat breakfast. go to yard. when i get bored i kind of get into stuff, you know.

>> the stuff he frequently gets into is provoking officers to extract him from his cell. >> get off me! >> each inmate is assigned a a security risk classification score based on his disciplinary record. the average score ranges between 19 and 27 points. >> i finally have the highest classification score in this prison system over 2,000 points now. i caught over 30 almost 40 felonies in prison, various staff assaults, anything you can think of you know. one thing i haven't been convicted of in prison is murder and drugs. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> hymes is probably one of our most difficult behavioral. he will tell you to your face his agenda. and his agenda is to fight you every chance he can. >> ain't no light.

>> he'll watch you and his hope is you'll make a mistake so he can get out or fight with you. that is his plan. that's what he does 24 hours a day. >> every time i see him it's to make their eight hours as stressful as possible. >> turn around. back to the wall. >> nope. not going to turn around. you know, whatever that may be, making noise all day. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] maggot. whatever, i can do to make their eight hours as stressful as possible. they say well i'm going home. i'm going home. yeah but when you go home, you'll be back tomorrow. >> close it. close it. [ bleep ] >> hold it. >> come on. [ bleep ] >> close it. [ bleep ] [ bleep ] >> hold it. >> that's the thing about this place. they ain't going to say well, kick me out of prison if they don't want me here, kick me out.

>> eventually transferred to san quentin state prison, the man who was arguably california's most violent inmate completed his sentence and was released in 2007. >> you have people locked up in this type of environment, then release them to the street, what do you expect? next on "lockup: raw." >> they'll come across their enemy, slice them across the neck. >> the ingenious weapons inmates use to attack. you don't let anything

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every day in america's prisons correctional officers are searching for them.

>> a lot of these weapons were confiscated on the yards. >> in prison slang they're known as shanks. they are the deadly weapons that inmates create from behind bars with an ingenuity that almost defies imagination. >> they get a disposable razor and put both blades, one on each side of the toothbrush. they'll come across their enemy, slice them across the neck, and because the two blades are so wide apart it just fillets the individual wide open. >> inmates will do almost anything to hide the weapons they spend so much time manufacturing. >> the first one looks like a wire shank. these are all covered or wrapped in some kind of latex material, then lubricated with whatever they can find. >> how long can they keep it up there? >> i believe the average time is maybe about a day.

when it's time to pull it out, sometimes it won't come out. and that leads to other problems. >> because inmates go to such extreme lengths to fashion and conceal their weapons, officers must be outfitted with a high-tech, nonlethal arsenal of their own. at the los angeles county jail, we encountered inmates who seemed impervious to tasers or anything else. to control these inmates, deputies had to resort to what's known as a four-point restraint. >> in the inmate reception center there's a lot of incidences. these guys come straight off the street. they're angry. and they're very violent. and they often go off. >> sit down. >> come on in and sit down. sit down!

>> one inmate in particular just couldn't deal with it anymore. he went completely berserk. >> freeze! >> let me breathe. >> have a seat! >> and they had to restrain him and one of the ways they do that is these four-point restraints. and they tell him exactly what they're going to be doing. >> mental health staff ordered you to be put in four-point restraint. you understand that? >> yes. >> i'm going to take you in here. i need your cooperation. the more you cooperate the faster you'll be out of points. >> ready. >> sergeant gilbert duran supervises the carefully choreographed restraint process. >> the deputies have been briefed as to who will take the upper body, who will take the lower body extremities. sometimes it takes a couple extra deputies to hold the upper

body if they're struggling or really upset about what's happening to them. >> about how many four-points are done per week? >> we average up here on day shift and p.m. from three to six. a day. >> as extreme as four-point restraints are, inmates sometimes take an equally extreme measure to attack officers. one that is particularly vile. >> gassing is what we call it. a mixture of feces and urine sometimes fermented for days until it stews into something so grotesque you can't mention it. >> during his 14 years on the job, san quentin officer jones, has never had a worse experience than being gassed. >> i'd rather be punched, be kicked, i'd rather be stabbed than to be gassed like i was back in '92.

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

the most violent confrontations behind bars. cell extractions. >> tell you to back up to the door. if you back up you're a bitch. w! you're not taking these. hey, hey, hey! you're not taking those. whoa, whoa! you're not taking that. come with me. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. you're not taking that. mom, i'm taking the subaru. don't be late. even when we're not there to keep them safe, our subaru outback will be. (vo) love. it's what makes a subaru, a subaru. try new flonase sensimistgies. instead of allergy pills. it delivers a gentle mist to help block six key inflammatory substances. most allergy pills only block one. new flonase sensimist.

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

>> open the door. [ bleep ] >> when we visited the kentucky state penitentiary we met inmate duane harper who had a long history of forcing officers to extract him from his cell. >> [ bleep ] i'll fight sometimes, i'll argue with the guards, but i'm not violent. i've done a lot of time. i've been doing time on and off since i was 12 years old. >> when we first met harper he was serving his third year in administrative segregation or solitary confinement for having assaulted correctional officers. shortly after "lockup" arrived to kentucky state penitentiary,

officers had to extract harper from his cell again. >> he threatened us with throwing feces on us, spitting at us through the door. he threatened our families. >> a lot of the older ones like lieutenant gill, they know me from when i was a youngster back down here. so we have a different type communication level and understanding. >> every night you work. you heard me? you racest red neck [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. i know you is a coward. i know you all. >> harper will serve at least two more years in segregation. >> i made things hard for myself. i've been in segregation three years and i don't blame nobody else. i had opportunity to get out of here. i let my anger and my things get

to me that i shouldn't have and as a result of that, i'm still here. >> i can't say i'm sane. i'm pretty off balance. but i keep it in certain amount of control. >> another inmate at kentucky state penitentiary who is no stranger to cell extractions is victor hyatt. prior to interviewing him our producer was duly warned. >> victor hyatt is a very, very dangerous individual. probably the most dangerous individual in this institution. >> i remember watching victor being led to the interview. he had such an intense security detail that it almost felt like i was about to interview hannibal lecter, quite frankly. he was cuffed behind his back. but i'll never forget, it was like a normal fiberglass and metal cafeteria chair. there was nothing special about that chair. and he wasn't chained to the

chair itself. the chair was not secured to the ground in any way. i start to think to myself here i am about to interview this guy, i'm knee to knee with the most dangerous man in the state of kentucky, and he's not chained to anything. all of a sudden my questions, everything i prepared for the interview went completely out of my head. >> victor, tell me what originally what your crime was that brought you to kentucky state penitentiary. how long that sentence is and how long that sentence is you're serving. >> i'm in for murder. life sentence. convicted in 2001. >> are you proud of that notoriety? we heard you're one of the most dangerous guys here. how does that -- >> that's what i hear. i'm actually one of the most laid back guys here. >> i received threats from

different inmates for bodily harm but he is the only one that tried to follow through with it. >> come on in. i'll show you what a redneck can do. come on in. >> hyatt's refusal to cooperate with officers has resulted in numerous violent cell extractions. >> they tell to you back up to the door and if you back up you're a bitch. if you make them come in and get you, you get a little more respect. i never backed up yet. it takes a lot to put me to that point but when it gets to that point, i kind of go blank in my mind. i get like tunnel vision and you got to expect to be killed at any time. ♪

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good morning. coming up on msnbc's "your business," we kick off national small business week with the head of the small business administration, linda mcmahon. she talks about the president's new tax plan. also, what you can learn from the creator of make up geek who turned her youtube tutorial into a massive grand. get your start on the competition, next on "your business." will your business be ready when growth presents itself? you can take on a new job. or fill a big order.