ranging from drug possession to murder can be a stressful job for officers in san antonio's bexar county jail. >> can i talk to you? i want to talk to you real for a second. >> even more so, when the jail faces staffing shortages. >> we're at least 120 officer short. right now we're doing what we call a mandatory overtime program where we're requiring officers to stay over after their shift is completed for at least a couple hours. talking to the officers, you can see this is stressing them, really stretching it and hopefully we can do something about that in the near future so it isn't the proverbial rubber band and snap. >> the demands on staff extend beyond inmate housing units to service areas such as the jail's mail room. >> the most overwhelming aspect is not the mail itself, it's the volume of the mail. on a busy day, we'll get about 2600 pieces of mail coming in. going out we probably send out half that, 1300 pieces. daily. then we'll go to the cutting machine and open them all up. and we start the inspection process. we don't read all of the mail. however, we do scan the mail. we ope

transform tomorrow. >> inside san antonio's bexar county jail, two gangs, the mexican mafia and the tangoejones, pose the greatest throat security. but according to gang investigator officer rodriguez, there are only two pieces in a complicated puzzle. >> in the bexar county jail, there are approximately nine prison gangs, but uncountable number of street gangs. street gangs pop up, literally overnight sometimes. and dissolve as quick lip however, prison gangs have a lot more of a thicker history, it's a larger population, they're actually nationwide. >> one of the larger gang is the aryan brotherhood. >> aryan brotherhood is a true prison gang like the mexican mafia. they have a constitution, a hierarchy, a paramilitary structure. >> at hispanic bexar county jail, the gang is characteristically quiet. >> the white population is very low. 48 inmates but 10 whites in there. it's counterproductive for white groups to cause any tension when they're severely outnumbered. >> the few aryan brotherhood members that i did get to know in the bexar county jail did have a lot of bravado. they were m

available on any device. >>> inside the general population units of san antonio's bexar county jail, monotony can be shattered by sudden violence. on a saturday morning inmates pass time in the day room when a fight breaks out in the second floor cell. >> code 2. >> the jail's special emergency response team races to the unit and orders all inmates to the ground. within moments it's all over. one of the participants is a member of the white supremacist gang the aryan brotherhood, adam verlander, who's here on charges of car theft and evading arrest, to which he has pled not guilty. >> aryan brotherhood of texas, baby. >> the other inmate is dimitric gonzalez, who is awaiting trial for assault and drug possession and has also pled not guilty. >> so what was this about, verlander? >> bloody towels being left where we put our drinks. >> it's a misunderstanding. i had come from the hospital. they thought because i had just came from going to the hospital i had laid a gauze that had blood on it on the windowsill. >> towels with blood on them. supposedly he left it on the window and he didn

now back to "lockup." >> across the street from san antonio's bexar county jail is the annex.here that low inmates are charged in large dormitory housing units that are usually -- while some try to rest, others are socializing, talking on the phone or playing games. matt gentry prefers to spend his time making music. ♪ i don't know about a job ♪ i'm tiring of being incarcerated ♪ ♪ i want the lifestyles of the boca raton ♪ ♪ you can stay up in the hood or you can widen your terrain ♪ ♪ you can keep on hustling but i'm going to follow my dreams ♪ ♪ don't you want to live a casual life ♪ ♪ the type of living that'll do you right ♪ ♪ it's up to you so do your thing ♪ ♪ yeah [ applause ] >> a whole different perspective on life. not all about what you are doing in the hood or growing up around. there is more to life than what you see. so, there is a whole different terrain, you can widen up to. all up to you to choose the path. that's what the whole song was about. >> some of the chosen paths of the 3500 men and women have led to heartache. others have sought more productive paths

and some younger groups have come in and it's creating a lot of problems for us here at the bexar county jail>> the capacity for 4,500 men and women, bexar county jail is larger than many state prisons. most of the inmates here are pretrial detainees, meaning they have only been charged with crimes and are awaiting the resolution of their cases. but that doesn't stop violence. >> code 2! >> code 2. an inmate has just assaulted an officer. a jail special emergency response team, or s.e.r.t., answers the call. >> put your head to the wall. >> what's your name? >> juan rubio. >> 766399. >> injuries. >> right there to the nose. >> redness -- >> redness around the ear. it's all good. >> i don't have a statement. >> the report will read that juan rubio, currently in jail on charges including aggravated robbery, to which he has pled not guilty, was on his way to the recreation yard when he stopped for a drink of water. corporal odegaard then instructed him to hurry along. >> he turned, threw the water at me, struck me several times in the left side of my face. as he was striking me and i was defendi

bexar county jail is a modern day fortress that houses approximately 3500 male and female inmates. most have only been charged with crimes and are awaiting trial for the resolution of their cases. >> we're very regulated on how we have to handle inmates. we realize that even though they're incarcerated, they still have rights. we also realize that we're not here to punish or to convict anyone. it's just to hold them. >> but in jail, holding inmates is never a simple proposition, especially when they don't want to be held. >> a lot of the gang members, because they're secure in a cell for 23 hours a day, they've got all that time to, you know, think of different games they can play with the officers. because they're trying to create a reputation for themselves that they're not to be messed with. >> i'm easy to get along with, once somebody disrespects me or something, we going -- we going to take care of business. >> jose hidalgo is a member of what officials describe as the fastest growing an most notorious gang in the jail. the tango orejones. but hidalgo describes the gang as mor

. >> anyone accused of a crime in san antonio will most likely pass through the bexar county jail. >> got to spread out on the wall right here. remove your shoes and socks and put them on the floor behind you. >> some will make bond and leave, but on any given day, about 3,500 men and women are housed here, awaiting trial for resolution of their cases. deciding in which of the jail's 84 housing units is a complex process known as classification. >> every inmate that comes into our facility is interviewed by a classification officer. our class officer, train and tripe to figure out where do we house this person where we will have the least amount of problems. so looking for things like is he mentally ill? does he have any medical issues? >> any problem with seizures? >> no, ma'am. >> suicidal? >> no, ma'am. >> gang related? >> no, ma'am. >> homosexual? >> no, ma'am. >> determining if a gang member is an inmate. >> if they confirm him as a gang member, the next question is, is he a threat? >> where did you get picked up? >> here. >> what year? >> [ bleep ] two years ago. >> the most com

. >>> when new inmates arrive at san antonio's bexar county jail, >> why are you hanging around withls ask them about any known enemies they might already have here. they then place those inmates in separate housing units. but inmates rarely disclose every conflict they have on the streets such as the dispute that led to the recent fight between victor sanchez and two other inmates. >> where's he at? bring him over here. >> sanchez initially claimed that he sustained a black eye, burns to his chest, and cuts on his head in a fight. both admitted to the fight but denied the injuries. >> is he the one that threw the water on you? >> no, no. >> who throuew the water on you? >> i don't know about that. >> narrator: after sergeant tucker investigated a rumor that sanchez had fought with two other inmates days earlier, sanchez admitted that the black eye came from that fight, as did the cut on the back of his head, which was reopened in the fight with lomez and hernandez. but he still insists they were the ones that burned him with hot water. >> sanchez, do you want to file charges? >> sho