i see the as 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. m gola louisiana just 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 and i. may go into the farm eighteen thousand acres the largest maximum security penitentiary in the united states. in the eighteenth century and below is 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 feels.

now there is no pocket knife. no weapon. 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 cool in the wild a show in the south and it's all so. will cain is the man behind the success of the rodeo. in the last decade cain has

transformed the rodeo into a massive money spinner for east prison. 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 damage good so they're at the by my depression is there is that we really are are locked together it was i look forward to it the fanta i like to think. not that the people clap for them i never forget the big of about crime they're here because the crime victim but still we can be rehabilitated program because the rodeo by. the inmate cumberlands volunteers. at each rodeo around fifty of them signed up to face the bulls on wild horses the radios considered. a special treat for the prisoners only those with

a good record are allowed to enter the arena. and it's almost like freedom for me to be out still part of any event i do will i'm left behind was about time they co-create this is special case when americans critically to look at us you know all i've been taking away from this hill is. the rodeo gives the inmates the chance to see the 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 sense 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 seeing the. oh my. seat 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 but all being locked up in angola. and despite them lack of previous rodeo experience none of them is allowed to trade.

i think there's a pro bursa 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 event that is troubling to say the least.

i can make trying to reason without trying in my did we have to rent the dock to come here is not our cattle and they can try and try a mound over and make it better around or report on armor on and we have professional trial and you'll see today i don't expect anybody out to be our very badly if at all. i. never like the. people who really wants to see. somebody just flip by the bull you know somebody get through by the horns. nor is henderson spent twenty seven years of angola but now. 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 a situation like. seeing as we have been kicked in the face. kicked in the face by you know who are bull. just continue to put to simply you know what motivates them you 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 as 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 convict poca the premise is simple the last man sitting at the poker table wins the two hundred dollars pot. i do 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 are part of what it is. sacrificing its sometimes even your own body you have to sacrifice to get what you get but. his dad must have some suicide attempts. you know they're trying to pop a new book fourteen hundred two thousand. two hundred. my

life both. 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 low self-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're they're actually you know worthy of. being human but on the one hand is this moment when the man get this chance of 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 nine hundred fifty seven dollars 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 be human. this is sprites all of the human. life. now for the same. jerry brown's favorite event is the guts and glory. the inmates have three minutes

to grab a chip off the lawns of a two thousand pound raging bull the winner gets three hundred dollars. lemon after the peaceful person but is ten where you have to get aggressive you gotta get. praising him a look at him like the built in annoying you just don't tell you that now i look at him like the obvious. works to me and we've. seen. so many to use take the wind doesn't blow it 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 the level of education is different from frost of calls and different. aware care of myself and 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 the goal. when i mentioned i wanted to be an example i meant to be can of hope inspiration in courage meant and success to all those that chose to watch and witness a. this type of example is needed here in

a place of such does elation disparity and neglect. and i'm glad when i came up with violence around you all day when these are going someone against their from i think in shadow is invalid it's vile ness while when i face the war i'm not scared. needed to see the discount someone vanity blom out to some of us that but i'm a laugh and not steal breve than x. gospel for sure he'll give a reason my destiny was a life full of hortense's a mother's blessings. of the journey grew up in one of the pools like neighborhoods of industry full of they know the newseum a secure place to see the trees 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. them. to the kitchen. charles around his jerry's brother in the small 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 you know he became. you know if he'd of been out on the street to me. you know he. says look. it's my right.

more about jerry. you know i learned to pencil and paper that i was the most important woman is i. 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 terri he loved me more than anything. and. when things took a turn for the worse for me it took a turn for terry for the worst. it's. my personality is built around amalfi and around the set

a young age when i was small like. this guy used to beat my mom the palm of time right in front of me and my mom 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 it and he moved on boom boom boom i became a drug advocate crack addict. and a good indeed jerry was constantly in fights concerning his modeling. over the ocean. and this. this own way. if you'll souls now the human having any. role models anything he didn't really have anybody to of or nay to his his family members that were all all in most in and out of jail all of his life in concentrated. to.

begin. to. beg he will be a part of the gang in the tolkien. i guess he. took. you know. a place of protection a word now because the. at first we we used to be to go 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 you know 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 on live with colds or has won the prepares people for success and prism. 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 or germany. look fausta 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 and concentration on needed to beat the criminality in this state. do you realize. we're locking our sales up instead of. we're putting our sales behind bars we're building better tetra walls around our stuff while it goes we're free of 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 than us that's 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 let em go. since one thousand nine hundred fifty 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 presidential event is. done cravings democratic state senate of 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 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 a lock them up and throw away the key that somehow we're 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 bend it demands the delf

bounty or. 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 warden's 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's a bigger cost if you don't there's a cost to sat in pain and suffering in misery 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 bigger ones if you've been

down go you know we've got a lot of. the

top stories of the day from the week four alarm blaze is caused by record breaking heat in russia have spread into new areas the wildfire. destroyed.

secrets the u.s. congress approves of the afghan military campaign despite documents put online detaining coverups of civilian deaths and a failing american effort. trying to turn the toy supplies in russia's far east to under threat as thousands of barrels containing toxic chemicals flowed down the chinese river towards the country's border. and bittersweet celebration the sting is taken out of arizona's tough immigration law just before its elected activists say the flights. with a look back at the week's top stories on. the latest developments this is all to you here in moscow good to have you with us almost a quarter of

a million people to be mobilized across russia to tackle wildflowers the ravaging the country twenty five thousand foreign gyms have been deployed in at least thirty people have died in blazes point the country's most severe heat wave for one hundred thirty years well to the sort of. the worst affected. has been hit very very hard the last couple of days by these fires that we say at the moment the emergency services say the situation head has been gotten under control but what we know is that there's still a huge amount of fires burning throughout russia and that's really preventing a struggle to get under control in the last twenty four hours around one hundred thirty five new fires have broken out in the most gave agent so really a huge huge strain on emergency services and we've heard the russian military have been quoted to help get control of those a huge amount of volunteers have been needed as well now you can actually probably see behind me some of the devastation that this has caused this is.