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tv   [untitled]  RT  July 26, 2010 4:31pm-5:01pm EDT

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it's complicated a very brutal of that gladiatorial of that. and its role in this indignity to these me and. it's nothing but exploitation of people who have no choice. last summer samina laugh sums up my patient data and go. to see the land of opportunity to be an example.
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it's a long way to those gates and once man reach there they know they're just so so far away far away from our vision far away physically far away among. louisiana it's more than five thousand men considered the most dangerous criminals in the state a locked up in this penitentiary. inside the inmate population is eighty percent black and comes mostly from louisiana's poorest neighborhoods nine inmates out of ten a serving sentences so long that they're going to die in a. they
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go into the found eighteen thousand acres the largest maximum security penitentiary in the united states. in the eighteenth century angola was a slave plantation it took its name from the origins of the slaves who came from mongolian africa. today any incoming prisoners first assigned to hard labor in the jails.
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no no no pocket knives no southbound no that stuff no way. five times ten thousand people gather at angola to watch the prison rodeo a rodeo for the prisoners inside the prison they don't started in one hundred sixty five and today it's the only rodeo allowed in a u.s. prison it's gone the while the show in the south it's all so. will cain is the man behind the success of the rodeo. in the last decade jane has transformed the rodeo into a massive money spinner for his prison. warden cain a southern baptist is a popular figure in louisiana in two thousand and three his peers voted him warden of the year. i'm ok
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a pound and i wanted their baby or me and them or the fight you know we're in this together i'm doing tam good so they're at the buy it and not oppression is there if that we really are are locked together at war i will follow it through at the font i lack of faith in him be the clerical not that the people clapped for them i never forget the back of the ballot grant they're here because of crime victims but still we can be rehabilitated program for good rodeo by. the inmate cumberlands volunteers. but each rodeo around fifty of them signed up to face the bulls in wild horses the rodeo is considered a special treat to the business only those with a good record are allowed to enter the arena. and it's almost like freedom for me in a galaxy far at any event i do will i'm left behind was about time they concrete this is special case when americans critically to look at us you know you know all
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i've been taking away from this bill is. the rodeo gives the inmates the chance to see them families outside the prison visiting area even though they're not allowed to touch their loved ones this some official visit is something a lot of inmates look forward to the. new live. in one thousand nine hundred eight this journalist published an in-depth book on the angola prison rodeo. these men are not seen even often by their own families once they pass the ten or fifteen year mark of their sense so here comes this event once now twice a year where the stadium is packed for society come. yes and these inmates
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take that chance to be seen. oh. can you seat but no no. but this exposure has a price most inmates come from urban areas of louisiana and have never been around bulls old horses little being locked up in underlip and despite them lack of previous rodeo experience none of them is allowed to train.
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i think there's a program or so aspect to it definitely i mean look you've got convicts who are not trained who are quite likely to get hurt and a crowd that's coming there to see the oddity and perhaps the perverse that of that that is troubling to say the least. or a. whacko make trying to reason without trying it might get we have to rip the doc to come here and it's not our cattle that can try and time out over and make you better around to report on armor and we have prepared to apply own as you'll see today i don't expect anybody out of. very badly if at all.
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i. like the. people really wants to see. somebody get flipped by the bull you know somebody get through by the horns. nor is henderson spent twenty seven years of bengal it but never took part in the rodeo today he works as a paralegal in new orleans. just by the grace of god there's nobody has actually been killed. in the situation. as they have been maimed i've seen guys who have been kicked in the face while holes kicked in the face by you know bored by
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a bull. but some of these guys just continue to put to simply you know what motivates them you know lord knows i know some of them go out there for the simply for the prize money. simply him it's not that it's a fortune it's the fact that in prison one hundred dollars is a lot of money. hundred dollars can sustain a person in prison for years his basic needs for alone time. whether paid for inmate labor is about twenty five cents an hour most inmates are more than willing to clash with the bulls for the biggest prize money some cowboys use they winnings to improve their life in prison some spend it on legal fees of ascended to the families. it's time for a comeback poca the premise is simple the last man sitting at the poker table wins the two hundred dollars pot. i do it for the
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money and for the excitement you have to i mean that's what is about to come out and compete if you want to do want to compete you want to win and part of what it is. sacrificing is sometimes even your own body you have to sacrifice to get what you get that. his dad must have some serious side to this. you know the trying to. maneuver fourteen hundred two thousand. to two hundred. bullets. we've talked to guys about the rodeo why did you do it and there is there's just not one concrete answer to carry my as it's been locked up in angola for the past
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fifteen years as editor in chief of the prison magazine miles has covered many rodeos. some of it is is the is a recognition you got a guy who a lot of people in prison and. esteem they don't feel like they've ever accomplished was they want people out there to see that they've done something in here that they're more they're worthy of something they were there actually were in a worthy of. being human i was on the one hand is this moment when the men get this chance at transcendence and redemption but on the other side. the rodeo is now conducted in these striped shirts which were always a symbol of sort of the. totally separating the end mates from society totally separating them from any image of humanity those striped shirts were
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abolished or the nine hundred fifty seven gola for precisely those reasons of being excessively degrading word chains brought them back i don't think that's something that thrills the convicts though they probably won't say always around. this is to humanize. this mispriced something to the human. look like. nothing. now for us to see. jerry brown's favorite event is the guts and glory. the inmates have three minutes to grab a chip off the homes of a two thousand pound raging bull the winner gets three hundred dollars. the next in a peaceful person but it's ten where you have to get aggressive you've got to get.
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crazy i'm a look at him like the film illinois i'm just going to tell you that now i look at him like the avi. works to me and we've. seen. so many good use they do when doesn't god jerry. jerry is twenty eight locked up since ninety ninety five he's serving a life sentence since he first entered the competition in two thousand. brown has become a celebrity. in a way i feel like i don't malone i feel like i'm out of place you know because of
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the level of education is different from prosecutors and different. though where care myself is different you know. what i have dollar for society in very day for. jerry brown decided to get an education in prison he reads books writes poetry and especially letters which is the only way to avoid censorship but i'm glad. when i mentioned i wanted to be an example i meant to beacon of hope inspiration in courage meant and six us to all those that chose to watch and witness to. this type of example is needed here in a place of such does elation disparity and neglect. and i'm buying when i came up with violence around you all day whether you are going someone against their from going to get
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a shag is invalid it's vile ness while when i face the board i'm not skin. needed using the discount someone vanity blam on to some of us that but i'm a laugh and not steal breve then x. gospel for sure he'll give a reason my destiny was a life full of hortense's a mother's bless his soul the journey grew up in one of the pools like maybe the city in three full days know the newseum a secure place. down just down to town and his mother was a drug addict jerry had to be raised by his little sister and his grandmother. as a kid he tried to escape his drug and gang infested neighborhoods by wrapping. up his chemical. to predict. the future but
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here. charles ramsey is jerry's brother and going into the small ramp studio as jerry was growing up charles was the first one to believe in jerry's talent and i couldn't believe you know key with fay and that he was. and he just. you know took it from there you know he became. the best rapper you know if he'd of been out of the history of me because you know he. is making. it's my right. to learn more about jerry pencil and paper. with this phrase. you know i learned to pencil and paper that i was the most important woman in.
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bonnie brown jerry's mother has been on probation for four years. since her release from prison she's been fighting for the right to go to angola and visit jerry the son she hasn't seen in ten years. he loves me more than anything. and. when things took a turn. for the worse for me. it took a turn for terry for the works. so. my personality is built around seen around the seven young age when i was small like. this guy used to be my mom the palm of time right in front of us knew him well you know and for me what he. was not known was that it was creating a lot of anger in me because i was so small and i couldn't help him and he moved on
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boom boom boom i became a drug advocate crack addict. and a good indeed jerry was constantly in fights concerning his modeling. over the hill. and this. and this so hey. if you'll souls' not been having any. of role models anything he didn't really have anybody to. relate to his his family members that were all oh most in and out of jail all of his life in concert rate. to get to. make it to the. big. bag he would be a part of the gang in the dog. i guess he took to
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you know. a place of protection a word because the. furth we used to be to go out of ten like a festival it working so between a native night i really would never fall and you know and he just had to do and if what he thought he had to do and he became a poet again. as a teenager jerry joined a gang on june the sixteenth one thousand nine hundred five a man you want to deal goes bad jerry shoots and kills. on the day of jerry's arrest it was bunny who convinced him to end this standoff and surrender. to. louisiana has one of the highest crime rates in the united states legislators
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adopted a tough on crime approach to try to solve the problem they've stepped up arrests and convictions since the seventy's been made population in louisiana has increased by one thousand percent. the culture of louisiana is one that. does not prepare people in general for success a lot of the culture has won the prepares people for success in prison. louisiana also has the highest rate of inmates the capital and the well. the state has around eight hundred prisoners to one hundred thousand people that's ten times more than countries like france germany. the cost and a professor of criminal justice has been a regular visitor to angola for the past twenty eight years. he's an expert in
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corrections systems. legislators who are primarily. it's primarily white primarily coming from smaller cities smaller tales and rural areas who are making laws designed to protect the people of louisiana from crimes committed mostly about poor people living in cities many of whom are boy probably in this room within the next few years one of you will be murder if you believe this. and i say this tough on crime approach enjoys broad support in louisiana a majority of the citizens believe that tougher laws and permanent incarceration are needed to beat the criminality in this state. community do you realize. we're locking our sales up instead of the problems we're putting our sales behind
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bars we're building better tetra walls around our stuff the one that goes we're free of the criminals out there with prey to what happened to us like they should be locked up and we should be able to walk around the streets we do we have a strong sense of family and family values and lose analysts that if you abuse or murder one of our family members then we want you to be punished. sentence is a tough eighty nine inmates sit on death row and i'm going. since nine hundred seventy two whole life sentences without the possibility of parole. louisiana and it still cost his life sentences for murder aggravated rape. kidnapping and the so-called third strike by the beach will it end as.
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cravings democratic state senator of a louisiana has been fighting since one thousand nine hundred two to try to reform the legal system in his state. we fail i mean we fail miserably because we have not provided a better community we have not transform the lives of those young people especially who make mistakes we've not given them an opportunity to redirect their lives so what we do is we tend to believe that if we lock them away or lock them up and throw away the key that somehow we are going to be safer i don't think our system is failing it just means that our culture demands a different criminal justice system than they have in your bennett demands the belt don't he or. the. most will be out of control in this country if we don't take a very firm stance. as
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you may or may not know a child whose parent is incarcerated has a five time greater chance of want to present themselves so we are creating generations of new in sometimes even worse criminals. and and and we paying for it and we paying for it miserably in. this prison policy is costly. in two thousand and five louisiana budgeted six hundred million dollars for its prisons including around one hundred million for angola. in april two thousand and five new orleans hosted an international wardens convention for three days would lose from across north america shared their experiences and told business. it gave them the opportunity to shop around for the
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latest security systems for their prisons. and go lays looking at that need some law need the fence fence that's give you a shock and then change to anything more than then we'll kill you big business each dollar cost two hundred fifty thousand dollars four thousand million dollars he of just to maintain you put a system like that. what actually is very big here we can afford to incarcerate our murderers but there is a bigger cost if you don't there is a cost to sat in pain and suffering in misery oh there's a cost and terror and fear. in we don't want these people out so if the prisons are overcrowded then we should build bigger ones if you've been down go you know we've got a lot of room. for
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in the czech republic he's available in. central europe. will start. in bosnia and herzegovina available in. the children of each. tons. of a little. league thousands of military documents to the internet revealing major cover ups over the
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war in afghanistan. and the u.s. are up in arms over what they say a broken government promises they claim the country. left many homeless. you know space is the best window of the. decade of discovery it's ten years since the international space station first became habitable when a russian module with life support systems. hello is one of. ten pm in london five in the morning in singapore right now wherever you are joining us around the world this is our. top stories and a massive leak of more than one thousand secret u.s. military.

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