at california state prison corcoran, the housing unit or shoe. isited the shoe's now vacant exercise yard, the scene of the prison's most brutal violence. >> i can see why fights went on. it was like a cage. there was nowhere for you to go and if you wanted to take them out, that was the place to do it. it's literally like the extreme ultimate fighting you would see. >> they showed cameras how they quell the violence with an arsenal of their. >> hopefully they will make them stop. >> those are louder. the smoke you see there is the end gas. it messes up your sight and makes your snot roll. we have a lethal option and many 14. >> today california state prison corcoran no longer has to resort to such drastic measures. they close it down and inmates exercise and walk alone in areas called the cages. sorting it out can be just as difficult. as the crews found out at the correctional center in seward, alaska. >> slow down. slow down. >> they will let the persons clean up. >> his adversary is serving a sentence for sexual assault. >> what was this all a

some of the most violent gang attacks have taken place here, at california state prison corcoran's security housing unit or shu. we visited the shu's now vacant exercise yard which has been the scene of some of the prison's most brutal violence. ♪ >> correctional officers showed our cameras how they quell the violence with an arsenal of their own. one that includes nonlethal and lethal weaponry. >> first rounds we fire are wood blocks. hopefully the hurt will make them stop. we really have to escalate with our nonlethal options we use what we call a scat round which is really irritating. those are louder. the smoke you see there, that's cn gas. it's no fun. it messes up your sight. makes you, you know, makes your snot roll. and of course we have a lethal option. we have a mini-14 here the 223 round, but we only use that as a last resort. >> today, california state prison corcoran no longer has to resort to such drastic measures to control violence in the shu yard. they close the yards down, and now inmates exercise in walk-alone areas called the cages. but even when officers are able to que

>> this is california state prison corcoran. a maximum security prison that has housed some of the nation's most infamous criminals including charles manson and the founder of the max can mafia. despite its reputation, violence doesn't come naturally to everyone at corcoran. >> i don't see myself as being like many of the people that are here but what i saw the longer i was here was that there really is a thin line between them and me. >> before he was an inmate, stefan parro was a librarian. >> i'm here basically because i'm an alcoholic, and done a lot of drugs, too. drugs are part of my story. >> his drug use resulted in a six-year sentence for crimes, including burglary. >> at that time i had been married, not very long. my wife was pregnant. and the fact that i couldn't stop drinking and i couldn't stop using, it was very difficult to deal with the shame and the guilt of all that. >> parro and his wife eventually separated, but he landed in prison for breaking into her home and stealing her credit cards to pay for drugs. >>

respect and don't cross those boundaries, we get treated just like anybody else. >> at california state prison corcoran we met three inmates living openly as homosexuals at what is considered one of the toughest and most violent prisons in the state. >> okay. if you could just state and spell your name for us. >> regina maiden. well, actually, reginald maiden. r-e-g-i-n-a-l-d. m-a-i-d-e-n. >> in this raw interview footage the three men discuss the possibility of attack and how they would respond. >> it's not being attacked. it's just being like -- you know, the proper word is stalked, harassed, because of rejection. you know, a lot of people here can't deal with rejection, especially coming from a transsexual. >> a lot of other things people don't realize, we're men like them. we're feminine like them. >> don't forget. women do kill. >> a lot of us don't put up with that and a lot of guys know that and a lot of guys that don't, so you know, when the ones don't, they end up getting beat up. >> and it makes them look bad on the yard. so that's why a lot of people do give homosexuals respect sometimes. th

>> but we've never seen a more bizarre display of the gut churning activity than at california state prison corcoranned during a routine shoot at the prison hospital. >> we were there for like ten minutes. did a couple interviews with a couple of doctors. initially it seemed like it was going to be mundane and going through the process. so we decided to leave. we were all packed up ready to go back into the other section of the prison when all hell broke loose. >> we have four inmates in four different cells that are holding food trays, some of them have started flooding the tier which means they're causing the toilets to back up, causing water to come onto the floor. i'll first go out, try to talk to the inmates and try to get them to comply with staff instructions. inmates fail to comply with staff instructions we will probably have to extract them. >> one by one the cells just started popping off. you know, one guy is just started throwing feces, the other guy was covering up his cell. i was like, wow, this isn't boring. this is pretty intense. >> i'm going to talk to them. i want to make sure we

for clay lopez, the california state prison corcoran, doing time led him to the harmonica. >> i'm almost old. and i'll be over 50 when i get out. so i don't have a career or anything, so i thought, well, you know, if i learn to play the harmonica, i can at least pay my own rent when i get out as a street musician if i'm sober, i think i'll do okay. ♪ >> you can play what you feel without reading music and i have tried to play guitar, piano. all kind of stuff and i never would anywhere. not that i'm going anywhere with this. but i know a few songs, mostly hymnals and gospel songs. a few of my own. it just expresses me. >> lopez was serving a 20-year sentence on 27 counts of burglary, but it was his exposure to inmates serving life terms that inspired him to pay them tribute through his songs. >> i just wanted to do something for the lifers, to kind of express them. i can sing in the last verse and ♪ ain't done no wrong ♪ since the days of old out in california ain't no other road ♪ ♪ when i'm carried away in the coroner's car ♪ ♪ someone tell the warden to please ship me to the dixieland

so in this funny little way, >> we found an even more unlikely bond at california state prison corcoranes, lettu care am him. they're good little pets. >> like the best little companion i ever had. >> a lot of the guys we ran into probably have never had anybody to love or anything or anybody to love them. and when you run into somebody who has adopted a gopher, it gives them some sort of outlet for affection, it's got to be a good thing. >> but we found a very different case of inmate creature bonding inside california's san quentin prison. >> i'm mike miller, my real name. and the staff here call me birdman of san quentin. >> the first day i got here at san quentin. the birds seemed to have flocked to me for some reason. and i don't know they probably think i am the birdman of alcatraz. maybe i'm mistaken because he had a shaved head too. >> miller was serving an eight but birds. i can't trust anybody else. >>> due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. ♪ ♪ >>> an inmate finds himself at the center of more than one battle. >> again, i didn't start it, but i finished i

. >> in the exercise yard at california state prison corcoran, we met an inmate whose art is inspiredr last name for me. >> my name is kevin moore. m-o-o-r-e. >> what are you convicted are? >> parole violations for sales of marijuana. >> the yard is an interesting place because you never know who you'll run into. you never know who you will talk to and you never know what personal or who they are. i kind of started looking around and started to find interesting-looking faces and i happened upon kevin moore and he's a rap artist and a ghost writer. i have a record deal at death row records and my aka is sassoon, and i have a demo coming out in a few months. so if you're a rap fan, listen to it. >> when you start talking to inmates you're not really sure what to believe. they start telling you these stories and you're saying, okay. i've been a ghost writer for 13 years and a lot of stuff i've written from behind these walls i have sold to other artists that have been out there and been successful. >> i said do a rap for me and he just rolled one right off his lips called 15 to life. >>

. >> duncan was serving 28 years for home invasion, kidnapping, and robbery at california state prison corcorantion of a criminal career that began at a very young age. >> i came from a good home. i can't say that i had a bad childhood. i just got mixed up with the wrong people. i started committing petty crimes when i was a kid because i actually did get strung out on heroin. my first shot was probably when i was 10 or 11 years old. >> duncan had spent most of his life incarcerated. in that time, he developed a reputation as an inmate to fear. >> these are some weapons that they say they discovered in a cell that i once occupied, allegedly. myself, personally, i'm a nice guy and i don't believe in violence. that's a damn lie. it was my responsibility on the yard to ensure that, one, our people were not harmed by another race. i took care of the drug debts if one of our people became delinquent in a drug debt to another race, it was my responsibility to either cover their drug debt or have them stabbed, in which case we would send one of ours to stab them. >> duncan's loyalty to his gang was al

. >> though the alarm call at corcoran ended peacefully, our cameras encountered a different situation in northern california's pelican bay state prison. >> having a routine yard release. >> our producer was conducting an interview with lieutenant ben grundy while a second camera was shooting routine footage on the yard below. then suddenly -- >> there is an alarm in that building right there. >> our cameras search for any signs that the trouble is spreading outside to the exercise yard. >> this is an actual alarm because nobody's waving us off yet. something is going on inside. >> what might be happening? >> probably an assault on someone coming out of their cell. some type of a cell fight or maybe a slashing. >> officers subdued six inmates involved in the fight. one of them was slashed with a homemade weapon. fortunately, this incident was nothing like the deadly events of february 3, 2000. >> the day they had the big riot i was standing in this exact spot. >> on that rainy day joshua voss, a newcomer to pelican bay was down on the recreation yard with scores of other prisoners. many of them were wearing rain gear, not only as prot