tv [untitled] RT July 26, 2010 8:31pm-9:01pm EDT
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america's largest maximum security prison were inmates volunteered to battle bulls but without special training in order to make money. the prisons may be filling up but the schools certainly are not louisiana has the worst high school dropout rate in the u.s. and loses around forty students every day something your courage is i've not been able to stop. my greatest concern is what happens to the ones that are eleven and twelve and thirteen and fourteen fifteen years old that in the pipeline on their way in goa and as you can see in i was system we have a huge white line. and
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. we treat our children. who worst of any state in the country overall way of the worst conditions for child welfare and then we punish them more severely than other states do we have the highest road so right of imprisonment so it's kind of a i've thought of it as being like oh like a reverse welfare system instead of taking care of them when we're young when they're young we ignore them when they're young and then we then we put them in prison and spend twenty thousand dollars a year keeping them locked in prison on my become adults it just seems like a very stupid social policy to me though we've done that for a long. jerry
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or. like jerry most inmates serving time at angola come from poor backgrounds and were represented by public defenders. public defenders do the best they can with what they have but sometimes it's not good enough the constitution of the state of louisiana requires our legislature to provide funding for public defenders but they don't right now the public defense in this state is funded by court costs mostly on traffic tickets. it's amazing spirit hard to get a fair trial if you are convicted over a felony and the only access you have to your attorney is the morning that you're going to be going to court i mean that's not. that's not that's not very good representation because we have underfunded the in the gym program. over the years i think you will find that many people lack
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a proper defense particularly those from in the indigent population. was. terry to show was arrested for possession of marijuana but chance with racketeering . to show couldn't afford a lawyer and was sentenced to one hundred years in prison and a one million dollars fine he spent eighteen months at angola before winning his appeal thanks to an outside benefactor. of the life or can also. order for a just lot of drugs. or work in person with no mourning if you don't have the money now you cough walk away from the law perish. it all still to go
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through this though you were. once arrested poor defendants like terry faced prosecutors with political ambitions and far greater resources than public defenders. john sinkfield this tough on crime prosecutor plans to run for district attorney of east baton rouge in two thousand and six. law and order dept of punishment for murders and a strong stand against crime the what i've done for thirty four years that's been very successful for me in that i'm the best at doing my case and one of the media. that could have been ruled and that's what it says a lot but it was exactly like the law books one of them. and i'll look at that every every time i think about i was only a case out of the me but i still had to fight because they were looking for
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a way. to there themself a big name. truck driver terry to show was lucky successful appeals like his very rare in louisiana this project been challenging you got to hand it to daniel stanford is a criminal lawyer in lafayette he won the appeal to tell you to show stanford dislikes the legal system that links politics and justice to the most powerful positions in any parish is the sheriff in the district attorney. they have all the power and so when you have all these people getting together statewide saying we want tougher laws we want the procedures changed in a way that favors us. it happens because that's popular in louisiana not only da's elected but also state judges are elected up think that's the best way to have a prosecutor are just be elected by the people because then you're responsive to the people and guess what people are losing don't solve prosecutors and they don't
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want to solve judges they don't kick you out if you're elected official and you got elected under the premise of i'm going to be tough on crime. you commit crimes you're going to send you away as a matter of fact you will do we're going to jack up the penalties we'll put these guys away because that's what people have been told in this country in this state here so i'm just going to go along i'm not going to say the system is not working i'm going to stick to what got me elected you know tough on crime. to most life as that sentence actually means death by incarceration. louisiana has a pardon board that can theoretically recommend a sentence be commuted. but the board hardly ever does. in the last ten years only to clemens's were granted out a full thousand inmates seven
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a life sentence. a laugh some most of mine a laugh sometimes i think they should bat and go oh it doesn't matter if they rehabilitate it they're there to be punished you commit a crime someone murders your mother your wife your daughter then you want them punished and if the punishment is a law if some it's done they shouldn't get out after twenty five years if they rehabilitate it i think that's good for them i'm happy for them but that has nothing to do with punishment the summits as for punishment many people who are sitting in a goal with a natural life sentence. or easily rehabilitated. but because of our laws the our laws are or cane and their ancient. people who could come out and be productive in society will never have that opportunity.
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they're going to sit in angola for the rest of their lives they're going to die nicola and if their family doesn't come in and remove the remains will be buried there so you'd have nothing to do you know all three of them only. after i didn't. eat. at. all and for. which i'm going to do it but it. needs to go oh i didn't. mean. to mean that. you know one of person commits a crime no matter how many times people see you after they don't seem you they see
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the crime you committed over and over and over again when it's really not there when. i killed a man because i thought he was going to shoot me i cried and i prayed i was so remorseful i didn't want to live for a while. what do the people want to do to me from a mansion do they want me to kill myself do they want me to rot in prison for sixty years what will make them feel that i'm remorseful for my actions. maybe if he keep when they maybe if he can be a good model prisoner or maybe somebody to take an interest in him and live you safe.
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he. says it's almost like the roman days roman glad when the people went to see the lines either up to this life. and so again you know my spin on the road i've never liked over there would like to really feel the cause of death because it's almost like people come to see you in your midst. it's important. to put their life. and time johnson and their
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insight come here every year are still would love it and for it they don't have prison rodeos at any other prison in louisiana but angola why because angola is the only place where people are serving life sentences with no hope of parole no chance of ever getting out these guys who participate in the rodeo have pretty much exhausted every remedy possible they know they're not going anywhere so what do they have to lose nothing you know in the prison is taking advantage of that fact you know the prison knows full well that it in any event there's going to be a certain amount of guys and you know going to get severely hurt possibly killed but that's ok after all they're not human beings as it relates to the rodeo they're just convicts and that's why they dress them up in stripes to remind the spectators don't be a warm to somebody by bull it's only a convict. don't care. they don't have
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anything to lose their influence. and they think they have a good time. i think it gives them a few moments of feeling what real valued as it have for the average citizen of louisiana how does it make my community safer. how does it serve as an example or a deterrent to some young person. who might end up in a life of crime. to have spectators going to be do is a real tough guy years a hundred bucks. it doesn't do any good other than perhaps the resources that it brings to the prison. but we fund a prison. in april two thousand and five bill cain defended his rodeo at the walton convention. the rodeos another program that does
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a really good thing is that it brings the public interest is see that people can change it bring the public and just say that that the mh are daemons it brings the public in to say how we spend our tax dollars that we spend it constructively it's a beautiful place it's beautiful flowers it's an environment for chad it's not the . will cain season goal as a showcase present on the day of the rodeo he seems to have a point a hobby craft market is held along with the rodeo the trustees are allowed to mix with the crowd and sell their work this display of talent to good behavior helps angle a polish its image. medium security inmates are also allowed to sell their handicraft so this market is a win win situation for both the prisoners and the visitors as the visitors can buy cheap artworks and inmates can make money at.
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this rodeo you know. coming from the streets and brought to you it's been a blessing. to be able to meet other guys on the beat and make some. sense you know. that's what is really known. to me says. yeah it's great it's a great image people come in they see seventeen hundred prisoners at the rodeo so when harvey crafter. taking photos or working concession booths and there's no problems i mean there's just no problems. this clever marketing and who comes out looking like the good guy who of course the ward because he's more kidding himself to the legislature to the people in power saying hey because i did raise money for the prison i don't have to come and ask you for money you know
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i make i get the prisoners to help me generate funds the budget going to right almost two million dollars gross necessarily we have a lot of expense that we have to pay for the road pay for the facility we have to pay for everything we have there so the net is not that much will net enough to build a chapel and what would we need to build another chapel would build churches with the profits from the rodeo non-denominational charities. and you can't miss them chapels built with rodeo money has sprouted all over and build. john robertson is head of the angola campus of new orleans baptist seminary bible college. the chapel. building program is more or less but it is so new. that it's going to be amazing in the future a follow up study is going to show i predict great rosell. in the chapel
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fund. is going to make. a place for inmate ministers to soar. that is going to be indescribably effective. we've only just begun to see you there isn't it an oxymoron a church that preaches or the face that proclaims protecting human life you know the inborn chyle all life is sanctity it is precious you know and yet they put these human beings in a position where they're going to get hurt possibly killed you know to raise money for the church is there a conflict of interest here is there a theological cuddling no not a bell every time i drive up here to teach a class a risk moment. we're all going to
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live with. the rodeo is one of the few ways for these men to help. so they think in order to be able to help it's worth the risk. will cain has been spreading religion throughout the whole penitentiary since one thousand nine hundred five. today and goal is dominated by religion and the bible college the only college education available in the penitentiary is inmates the do sign up for the four year course a set to become prison ministers. in the in this situation our only hope is god we all here doomed to die in this please. indeed destitute an outcast from society and it's not what it is because if we're being used by the creator of this universe
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we're all more blessed than people that are free i did try the same thing there. are no rehabilitation other than more rehabilitation i can teach you to read i can teach you to write i just make a smarter criminal if i don't have morales in your heart this is harder than anything else she would have to do in the prison so this is not some hope to get out they've told us many times we're not trying to get you out of here we're trying to put you to be deleted god has called you the right way through all. the ones. on the n o t v. and approach.
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the pro the wife a mother to the bible the koran. that really shined a culture because we had so many people that would reading the bible in b. and moral that it with the rails in so it was just like a disease it just caught on and so the rest i'm so i'd say they started going to charge together they started love one another more they started they stopped didn't from one another they started being more people. if we were to have a roof bungle in a mirror. and bully it in stone. in her prison. this particular prison has a own going on their own goalie reduction of. the graft as always going down but it is drop since the outset of the school forty percent. and warren kane
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says that the other prisons in america are taking notice that's what they're noticing is this dramatic change in the behavior of the inmates toward each other. has changed. in the seventy's it was infamous for the rapes beatings motives and riots taking place behind its rays a while. today the level of violence has dropped and the prison seems to be calm. and i have a chance many times to go with churches in different places all over the place until the story of angola opened to intrigue and what god is doing in this place and i want to tell you something as i tell that story what you were doing here is becoming evidence to people literally all over the world that where ever jesus he
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is there is all. the bible college graduation. once they have their degree they're assigned to one of the six angola camps to minister to the other inmates and to become missionaries you know the prisons in louisiana. we're going to go out in every corner of this prison and and institutions in the ways and we're going to lead men we believe men and worship and prayer and we're going to preach the gospel and we're going to show it is a vet away. and we are allowed to do certain things that other inmates that are not allowed to do because of our education and what our our mission is we are allowed to go into the cell blocks we're allowed to go and adama toys whereas other inmates can't do that but because of our training in our background in the word of god we're able to go meet
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the man at their point you know where they're at in minister to. god you think i was worth anything i never did look will go it go prove me wrong you know you prove me wrong he said no you were much more than you you know he begins to grow again you can just see it in his eyes in his stall kids watch his own memories and distain it's a new since the present day guide on knowing seeing that guy's face over here that is just so profound you see and people. are gather on a swing on a frightened for christ if that means they'll be alone. there are soldiers. there while those guys walk across the stage this morning. and
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promise you. they'll go anywhere. if you scream and losing you is oh really good so simple and plain fun the peace the preacher released in the flames pales hard to see as the bombers demons run enough from the inside bust in the stomach my prediction that been addicts in two thousand and jerry will probably never leave angola but he won't give up the rodeo plays a central role in his rehabilitation and get away from the people that trying and the father of all nation that was the worst back to them. i see will you as an opportunity to get exposed you know and when we see it is told you then those who know of course i was aware of the want to look into it while we're here because they'd be like man he's doing something highly that you don't look like a bad guy to me.
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major coverups over the war in afghanistan. war veteran groups in the us are off in arms over what they say are broken government promises they claim because we base serve has let them down and left many homeless . a decade of discovery it's ten years since the international space station first became habitable when a russian module with a life support systems installed with it. the car's a report is up next my scars are and co-host stacy herbert take their usual caustic look at the players and intrigues in the world of finance that's next.
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