this is a special edition of "nightline." >> tonight, diane sawyer takes us into a hidden america. >> this is the deafening chorus. >> keep inside the most in a or the yus jail complex in the country. >> if you could survive rikers island, you can survive anything. >> those videos from the past. is it possible to change this infamous place, and the one man with a plan to change it all. inside rikers islands island is seconds away.

>> this is a special edition of "nightline." hidden america, inside rikers island. diane d diane sawyer reporting. >> reporter: tonight come with us to rikers island, the biggest jail complex in america, a place haunted by the violent history. 8,000 inmates living in a kind of suspension, a shadow world. >> if you can survive rikers island, you can survive anything. >> i'd like to kill myself. >> this is a bad ass place. >> reporter: there's only one road in, across the bridge. >> the inmates nicknamed this the bridge of pain. on one side the new york skyline and straight ahead a world

apart. our cameras will have seven days inside, 70 hours. once we enter, the first lesson of rikers island, be ready for the uninspected. >> stand by for one second. >> reporter: during our time there, nine different alarms, lockdown. >> the number deployed right now indicates something big, right? >> reporter: the question of something we came to answer, is it really possible to change this notorious explosive place. we start with the treatment of the most violent inmates. a door opens. listen. the sound of solitary confinement. across rikers island, while we're there, 165 people locked up to 23 hours a day in concrete cells. >> what did you say? >> like animals. >> reporter: no interviews through cell doors. this is the punishment for

inmates who attack officers or each other. fighting, slashing with hidden weapons. >> turn on the lights. [ bleep ] [ bleep ]. >> they won't let me out. we talking about a that. >> reporter: as we said, their entire world is concrete walls, a toilet, a sink, no tv. cut off from most human interaction. it's not even possible to see through the opening on this door. and the one hour spent outside for recreation? locked separately into an outdoor cage. in decades past, rikers used unlimited isolation has punishment. >> any sounds, cell doors, anything, we want to make sure that you're going to be okay. >> reporter: and as the officers serve lunch, the milk carton becomes a projectile of urine

and feces. >> i'm supposed to feed a guy that's throwing stuff out his cell at me. got to remain professional and do a job. >> reporter: here it's called splashing, and the officer tells me every space around the cell door puts him at risk for the weaponized body fluids. >> when you walk past, they smash it. >> reporter: he says he knows people across america have seen videos from rikers, officers using brute force, but he has a challenge. >> everybody has an opinion about what goes on in here, but nine times out of ten, anybody that has anything negative to say about a corrections officer, they've never been in a qui facility. >> i have a lot of years in solitary confinement. >> reporter: this man says in the past he was locked a year and a half straight in solitary which prisoners called the box. he says he's now a time bomb. how many fights? >> over the years, i can't

count. over, i would say, maybe 30, 40. i've been beaten down, almost killed exactly in this jail. i've been more imprisoned than in streets. when i went to the streets, i feel like i was in jail. i'm so institutionized, call it what you want to call it. >> reporter: he says he's changed forever. >> here i'm safe from myself. i'm safe from others. i can't function in society. >> reporter: the vast majority of inmates are here in a kind of purgatory, convicted of nothing awaiting trials, and 50% of the inmates were charged with nonviolent crimes. >> first and last time. >> reporter: aaron sent for stealing computers and phones, ended up in solitary because of an angry outbursts. he talks about the despair in this place. >> i see frustration.

>> reporter: the commissioner says there is no evidence this kind of treatment reduces violence, and says, remember, 80 % of the inmates at rikers will eventually be back out in your town. he says he wants the officers to start striving for something better. >> we can change people's lives. if you don't believe that, you can see these are throw away people. they're throw away. they were violent when they came in and go out, and they're going to be the next criminal that does 50 years, the next assault, because they're getting out. they're going to be your neighbor. >> reporter: they reduced the number of inmates in solitary by 70% and put time limits on the stay. instead he's created a unit where' where highly dangerous cell mates are out of their cells with extra security around. he's also moved the seriously mentally ill into units with intensive therapy. his most controversial and even radical idea may be this one, to

be the first jail in the country to get rid of solitary all together for the younger inmates, 18 to 21 years old, a small percentage of the population, the most difficult to control. a third of the violent -- >> a third of the violence. >> reporter: doesn't that give you pause, getting rid? >> it's not easy. these are difficult, dangerous people we're dealing with. i'm not saying it's easy, but it's a much better hopeful outcome than what we were doing. >> reporter: you've never been shaken in that belief? >> i haven't. >> reporter: we're walking in the part of solitary with younger inmates. the sound wild and deafening. [ screaming ] [ bleep ]. >> reporter: he says study after study shows the adolescent brain is still forming until the age of 25. isolation could change the wiring. this 21-year-old chained to the

wall. are you dangerous? >> no. i ain't going to lie. when i first got locked up, i was depressed. i felt like killing myself, but the neighbor next to me heard that and said you bugging. how old are you. go home. don't kill yourself. you got to be strong. >> reporter: he's in rikers for murder and solitary for an alleged attack on another inmate. a lot of officers asked what happens to them when solitary is over and they can't threaten the use of the box? >> i didn't sign up to be a punching bag. i didn't sign up to be a crash test dummy. you go back to that house and that inmate assaulted you, and you're looking at him eye to eye, and he's looking at you going, i'll do it again. >> reporter: the officers call it punitive segregation. >> punitive segregation should not be dismantled for the 18 to

21-year-olds. >> reporter: we told the commissioner what they're saying. >> it's faith. we're asking people to look in faith. can we change people's lives. >> whoever thought getting rid of solitary confinement was a good idea, you need to pack your stuff up and go. >> reporter: and consider what happened to this officer who has gone public. his face slashed by two 19-year-olds last november. >> i got 22 stitches in my face. this could have been a funeral arrangement today. >> i think that was tragic. i don't want to diminish what happened. >> reporter: but in one sense it makes the case against solitary. the 19-year-olds who slashed him had been in the box. it didn't stop them from attacking. >> if we believe we can change them and stop us being harmed by the fact that we did some good with these individuals, we won't save them all, but what we are doing now is saving nobody. >> reporter: when we come back, what about the history of

officers using brute officer, and we meet the inmate who operates as a kind of rock star here at rikers. his life about to change in ways he did not expect. >> unprecedented access to rikers island. haunted by a violent history. did you see anything to indicate what's changing or can? >> i want you to see some of the officers coming up who believe in this mission statement and some of the programs are already in place, and you'll be able to see how they're working, if they're working. and i really think you're going to meet some people you won't easily forget. >> more of her powerful reporting from rikers island when we come back. and by taking chantix, i was able to quit in 3 months and that was amazing. along with support, chantix (varenicline) is proven to help people quit smoking. it absolutely reduced my urge to smoke. some people had changes in behavior, thinking or mood, hostility, agitation,

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♪ >> reporter: across 415 acres, the nearly 8,000 inmates of rikers island. out of sight, often out of mind. >> i dreamed of being a marine biologist. i warra >> reporter: some of these, kids who have walked into this door for the first time. had you been away from home before this? >> no. this is the longest i've been away from my mom. >> reporter: this 17-year-old, his father left when he was a baby and like so many others here, he's a child of the sprawling projects of new york. surrounded by poverty, gangs, drugs. >> i didn't want to be in the projects forever. i wanted to move to north dakota or something, somewhere nobody plans on going. >> reporter: there are thousands of inmates like him sent here on nonviolent charges. he's accused of possession and

selling of drugs. >> it's a nonviolent drug offense. >> reporter: but frank lin wants to go back to school and asked for another chance, and wrote a letter to t letter to the judge. you wrote i'm a nobody. i learn from my mistakes. give me someone to talk to if i feel myself feeling negative thoughts, the commissioner said get to know kids like franklin, help them. >> see where they come from. you kind of develop relationships. before that wasn't something widely accepted. now we're encouraged to interact with the kids, and i think that makes everything easier. >> reporter: hoping to inoculate someone like franklin against what's been called the gladiator school. even nonviolent schools had to learn to survive in a violent world. >> they are very unpredictable.

they act out and attack each other. >> reporter: the deputy. >> we used to have a light switch, and the guard around the light, they would take that off and sharpen the edge and use that. >> reporter: this veteran of 31 years can read the smallest signs of trouble brewing in this population. overall at rikers, violence among inmates continues to increase. >> right now everybody has on their sneakers. they either knew you were coming or something is getting ready to happen. when they're really relaxed, they have on flip-flops. they're -- >> reporter: shoes are code? >> it's not a code. i don't want to fight with slippers on. >> reporter: are you all afraid in here? why wouldn't you be? those projects where violence is just daily life. >> i seen people get shot and stabbed. i got cut in my neck on the streets. got stabbed with a glass bottle.

>> reporter: a room full of kids with nothing to do or lose. some of them spending years here awaiting trial. >> it's like the bewitching hour. nothing to do. we did programming up until about 8:30, 8:00. that probably reduced the violence a lot. >> reporter: programming, the new commissioner shows us one of his pilot projects, units with 300 younger inmates that attend school and spend five hours on everything from computer training to horticulture. in another part, 4 00 adult inmates attend college classes and job training. we met someone who waited at four years for a trial. >> i had 23 adas on my case. >> reporter: he said this part of jail has changed in. >> this house, we've been here since last year. august, no curtains or slashings or stabbings.

>> reporter: the commissioner says there's evidence it's working. it takes time to expand to the whole jail and time to train all the officers and staff, the ones who make rikers notorious with scenes like this, brutal force on a young man who left this place and committed suicide. the retraining teaches officers to diffuse tense situations and use pepper spray instead of brute force. the use of pepper spray is up but serious violence between officers and inmates is way down and pots says a lot of the officers are ready to try to help. >>. >> i respect what you're doing for me. >> i see what you guys understand is a lot of us grew up from nothing. i grew up in the south bronx. my family had no money. my mother was strict and we had to follow rules. both my parents worked. we had nothing. i think sometimes you look at us and think we had it all so we don't understand.

that's not true. >> there you go. >> reporter: like the story of this young inmate who grew up in a rough world. we noticed that he was called bam bam and had a hold on his inmates at rikers. >> what's up baby boy? >> reporter: growing up he had a super star older sister sought after my colleges named by one of the best basketball players in the country by spoespn. >> is she played basketball. she was good. i loved basketball too, but i wasn't as good as her. i told her one day i'm going to get you. >> reporter: but one night in the stairwell of the housing project where they lived, members of a rival gang came in and shot his sister. inside he's the king of resilience, encouraging others to focus on a positive future. >> it keeps me looking forward to the goals i set for myself. for the most part, i'm young. keeping prepared and ready for

the girls, for the females. >> reporter: he's been selected as a suicide prevention aid. >> making sure everybody is well. just in case they want to talk. >> reporter: the radio is playing. ♪ >> it's light out. you good? what's the word? you good? >> reporter: we learn there is another part of murphy's story. a rival gang member mocked the death of his sister in a video. prosecutors say murphy murdered him. when we first meet, the trial is underway. >> conspiracy in the first, conspiracy in the third, murder on the second, assault in the first, robbery in the first. a lot of charges. i'm confused where they even come from.

>> reporter: he says he is innocent. >> i put it all in god's hands. >> reporter: several days later when we return, it's 9:00. everyone is locked in. i walk down the hall to see murphy. >> do me a favor. come out here. >> is it okay? is there a problem. >> reporter: murphy put a sheet over the door. he is facing 25 years to life. the jury found him guilty. could i say hello? how are you doing? >> i'm trying to clear my mind and stay positive. >> reporter: you walk the halls and take care of everybody in these halls. >> i need somebody to take care of me. >> reporter: he's temporarily placed on suicide watch. another night on rikers is about to end. >> reporter: the day began at 5:00 a.m. it's about to end with the

lights out. as we leave, a good-bye from the young man hidden behind the sheet in his cell. murphy, wishing us a safety exit from the island saying, safe home, can't do it today. can't do it too much today. >> this special edition of "nightline" is brought to you by macy ees. s. 's. tired of working for peanuts? well what if i told you that peanuts can work for you? that's right. i'm talking full time delivery of 7 grams of protein and 6 essential nutrients.

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