j. paul taylor center. >> my favorite, it's my favorite kind of snack, so i want to make sure she leaves that. >> reporter: this juvenile lockup is also trying to change as part of the 2009 settlement with the aclu after accusations of physical and sexual assaults and an absence of physical or mental health care, the state of new mexico offers constant resources even on the outside and has one of the poorest populations of children in the nation. here, keith gets a full day of school. daily counseling. guards that double as mentors. the reforms come from a program called cambiar, spanish word for change. implemented at all five of new mexico's juvenile centers. al jazeera america got extensive access inside to see the impact it's had on the inmates. keith is seven months into a two-year sentence. he's had only one family visit and he's nursing an old basketball injury. >> first it was pretty bad. my anger was pretty bad. so i needed to just learn how to control it better. it's kind of hard though. because right whether i start feeling it, i try to tell myself to calm down but it doesn't

j. paul taylor didn't fully implement cambiar until a year ago. it's success is still measured in kids like keith who finally reaches his mom. >> thank you sir. sup mom?... how are you doing? oh i know i ain't even trippin' like those kids can't bring me down. alright, so... alright well, i don't want to go over before i get in trouble. alright i love you too. bye. >> then suddenly, i see another side of keith... when ...out of nowhere... he tries to start a fight. he's the guy with the pink cast in this surveillance video. >> so, how many fights have you had in the five months you've been here? >> five, heh. >> five fights? >> five, yeah, five. >> so, every time you fight, you get a disciplinary write-up. >> yeah. and it takes 7 to get extended on a two-year, and i already have 7. >> so the next thing, you're getting extended. >>, i've got to be really cautious. but i mean, i still have slip-ups. the other day, i almost got into a fight. and it was over, somethin' stupid. >> someone cutting you in line. >> yeah. it's, so i gotta s-, just start th

j. paul taylor system. does it seem like a prison? >> yes doors lock and there's barbed wire around. that's like a prison but they have made it less prison like, as the guards act as mentors and they have counseling one on one. if they had a fight in the past, what they would have done is separate the two young people put it in solitary, that would be it, write them up. now what they do they never allow them to be in solitary confinement ever, they have to have somebody in the room with them all the time and they bring the entire group together and sort of do a group like a million years ago when i was young they call it like a rap session, they talk about their feelings and fears and walk through what happened, the idea is that a lot of these kids come into the system traumatized and they need to deal with not just the behaviors but really the thing that brought them into the system in the first place. >> this is a great idea. but as we know great ideas don't always work. >> and they can be expensive. this one is not cheap. >> what is the success rate? >> the missouri success rate i

las cruces new mexico, an entire day of schooling, counseling and mentoring are built into the j paul taylor center. it's meant to be that way. this is now uniform throughout five of the centers throughout the state. soledad o'brien starfish media special correspondent to al jazeera, formed to be part of a 2009 settlement with the american civil liberties union. soledad joins us now. these are referred the as clients and not inmates -- >> that may be semantics but they're moving away with this you're an inmate on the pipeline to prison. those changes coming about as as you mentioned that aclu lawsuit 2009 big changes had to come, they call it combiar abuse of juvenile offenders in solitary confinement 23 hours a day age 12. many said this has to change, it's got to change. now combiar model is what they are testing. part of it is semantics, are you a client or an inmate but also counseling, that session you saw at the beginning was really a guard leading a counseling session where the students have to really young men have to talk about how they're feeling how their day is going how they're

j. paul taylor center they will have to control their rage. >> i think this system has made me a better criminal. >> inside the are criminal system where the fight for redemption begins. >> produced by soledad o'brien in the studio tonight. soledad, welcome. >> thank you so much. >> the j paul center in last las cruces. does it feel like a prison? >> it does feel like one but what they've tried do is make it feel less prison like, in the sense that the guards often act like mentors. they work one on one and if there is a fight, in the past they would separate the two and put them in solitary and maybe write them up. what they do they never allow them to be in solitary confinement ever, they bring the entire group together and have to talk about what happened and sort of does a group when i was young they call it a rap session, they talk about their feelings and talk about their fears and walk through what happened. a lot of the feeling is the kids come into the system draw in tied they need deal with the behaviors but really the thing abrought them into the system in the first place. >>

j. paul taylor center, they'll have to control their rage. >> honestly, i think this place has just made me a better criminal. >> inside new mexico's juvenile system where the fight for redemption begins. soledad, hi! soledad o'brien is with us this morning, she issues the c.e.o. of the star fish media group. her special report, kids behind bars airs this sunday on aljazeera america. good to see you. >> great to see you, good morning. >> hi! i got to know more about this program, can't waited to see it. >> i was really interested, i don't know if you've heard about the missouri miracle where people look at the state of missouri which really aggressively tried to reform what it was doing in juvenile justice, so a lot of states have been trying to model their own changes on what missouri has done fairly successfully. not exactly the same, but similar in that in no mexico, changes began at many do with a big lawsuit. the a.c.l. sued and alleged it was physically unsafe, there were sexual assaults happening in some of these juvenile detention facilities, and so under the law, they had to mak

j. paul taylor center they will have to control their rage. >> that was a scene from the documentary kidsl report airing. great to see you. >> nice to see you. >> this looks really good. >> we got great access inside the skr paul taylor center in new mexico. pd they're trying to figure out how do you reform juvenile justice in a way that gets you to the goal that you want which is spend less money on it and also see if you can rehabilitate the kids in some capacity. >> because they are kids. >> they were sued by the aclu in the early 2000s because there were lots of allegations of brutality, sexually assaulting the kids physically assaulting the kids. one guy in the documentary who was eight when he was first incarcerated talked about being 12 and being in solitary confinement for 23 hours a day at a 12-year-old. it was very typical. so what they have done in new mexico is try to figure out if they can repeat what they have done in missouri, what they call the missouri miracle which is lower recidivism get more kids out of the system and have more programs. >> how do you do that? >> you c