where inmates go toe to toe with raging bulls just to make a buck. it's complicated and brutal of that gladiatorial event. and its role in this new dignity to these me and. it's nothing but exploitation of people who have no choice. since. the last summer samina lobsang some think they should dad and go. to see what he learns an opportunity

to be an example. 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 is serving sentences so long that they're going to die and . they go into the fund 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 uncle a in africa. today any incoming prisoners first assigned to hard labor in the jails.

no no no pocket knives no cell phones no no weapon. five times a year 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 the u.s. prison it's gone the while the show in the south it's all sold out. kane is the man behind the success of the rodeo. in the last decade cain has transformed the rodeo into

a massive money spinner for his prison. warden k. . 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 a pound and i wanted their baby or me and them are the five you know we're in this together i'm doing tam good though it there at the foot by foot and not oppression is there if that we really are are locked together at war i look forward to it the font tab i like to think they are basic cell phones not the people crap with them i never forget the back of the ballot crap 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 on 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 this is almost like freedom for me in a galaxy far at any event i do will i'm now behind balls about how they co-create this is a special case when american spirit going to take a look at us you know you know all i've been taking away from this 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. in one thousand nine hundred eighty 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. since so here comes this event once now twice a year where the stadium is packed for society comes and these inmates take that chance to be seen. oh. can you see sheet but oh yeah. 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.

i think there's a programmer's 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. whack

on a train or even without trying it might get we have to rip the doc to come here in our county. now you can try and try to mount open mike you better rather we put on armor on whom we have prepared to apply own and you'll see today i don't expect anybody got a very badly if at all. like the. people really wants to see. somebody get flipped by the bull you know somebody get through by the horns. and. norris henderson spent twenty seven years that angola 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 by a homeless kicked in the face by you know who would buy a bull. but some of these guys just continue to put to supply 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 in 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 is basic needs for alone time. when the pain 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 convict poca the

premise is simple the last man sitting at the poker table wins the two hundred dollars pot. i do it for the money and for the excitement you have to i mean 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 suicide attempts. you know they're trying to. maneuver fourteen hundred two thousand. to two hundred. my life.

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 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 have. 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're they're actually you know worthy of. being human 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 abolished or the one nine hundred fifty s. any goal or for precisely those reasons of being excessively degraded ordered 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 be human. this sprite 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 loans of a two thousand pound raging bull the winner gets three hundred dollars.

even if in a peaceful person but is ten where you have to get aggressive you gotta get. crazy i'm a look at him like the built in annoying just don't tell you that now i look at him like the obvious. words to me and we've. seen. so many to use make do with doesn't glorify 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 a lone moloney i feel like i'm on a plane. you know because the level of education is different. from suppose one different. where care of myself is different you know. what i have to offer 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 be can of hope inspiration and courage meant and six us to all those that chose to watch and witness said. this type of example is

needed here in a place of such does elation disparity and neglect. and environment i came up in violence around you all day whether you are going someone against their family can shag is invalid its vileness while when i face the bore i'm not scared. me do you see the sky someone managed to be a black man to some of us that but i'm alive and not steal breathe and x. gospel for sure he'll give a reason my destiny was a life full of hortense's a mother's bless his soul to the journey grew up in one of the pools like neighborhoods in three full day know the e.c.m. a second place she dances 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 neighborhood by wrapping. the. chemical. in the. stomach to. get. three. rounds is jerry's brother in law and ends the small rap 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. you know he became. the best rapper you know if he'd of been out on the street in me because you know he. says look. it's my right.

to learn more about jerry so pencil and paper. we're best friends. you know i learned to pencil and paper that i was the most important woman in. bunny 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 them just. so. my personality is built around seen around the seven young age when i was small like.

this guy used to beat my mom the palm of time right in front of this new. mom you know and for me what he. was not knowing was bad it was creating a lot of anger in me because i was so small and i couldn't help him and he moved on boom boom boom i became a drug and i became a crack addict. and a good indeed jerry was constantly in fights concerning his mother. over there oh oh shit. and this. this ole. if you'll souls now the human have been any. role models anything he didn't really have anybody to. relate to his his family members that were all oh mostly in and out of jail all of his life incarcerated. to get him.

to begin to. get to. beg you will be a part of the gang in the dog. i guess he. took. you know. a place of protection a word because the. at first we we used to be together out of ten like a fast out of work and 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. louisiana has one of the highest crime rates in the united states legislators 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 by capita in the world. the state has around eight hundred prisoners to one hundred thousand people that's ten times more than countries like france germany.

the cost of a professor of criminal justice has been a regular visitor to angola for the past twenty eight years. he's an expert in corrections systems. legislators who are primarily. it's primarily white primarily coming from smaller cities smaller towns 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 criminals we're putting our sales behind bars we're building our territory walls around our stuff why because we're afraid 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 alice that's that if you abuse or murder one of our family members then we want you to take the. sentence is a tough eighty nine inmates sit on death row let them go. since one thousand nine hundred fifty two whole life sentences without the possibility of parole.

louisianan still posses life sentences for murder aggravated rape. kidnapping and the so-called third strike presidential attendance. cravings democratic state senator the 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 transformed 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 especially it just means that our culture demands a different criminal justice system than they have in your bend it demands the

bounty on your own all the criminals will be out of control in this country if we don't take a very firm stance. as 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 latest security systems for their prisons. and go lays looking at that need some not 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. to get to what actually is a very big if we can afford to incarcerate our murderers but there is a bigger cost if you don't there is a cost to society and pain and suffering in misery oh there's a cost in terror and fear. in we don't want these people out so if the prisons are overcrowded then we should build big ones if you've been down go you know we've got

a lot of room. washington

investigate who's behind the biggest leak of classified military documents in u.s. history while veterans of america say the continent should focus on its questionable rules of engagement not with supposed that. new sanctions on iran to be counted out come under fire from russia moscow says the

move falls outside a recent you have resolutely and all to myself is to solve it and bring him nuclear issue. a baltic tiger law gets hit hard by the financial crisis say their government is doing a little to help them it's only charity that's putting food on the table. i'll be back with more headlines in half an hour but between now and then max cars around stacey herbert look at what's to blame for more americans losing their jobs because a report is next year on our team. well i don't know the guys ready for it max kaiser and stacy herbert in america and around the world people were anxiously.