county jail system. >> los angeles county jail is unique in the fact that every gang in los angeles countyre. it doesn't matter if they're a black gang, an asian gang, a hispanic gang, or a white gang. if they're active in los angeles county and they get arrested, they end up coming to the los angeles county jail system. >> the osj unit must rely on communication to help prevent gang violence. >> solving crime is all about getting the information from somebody. it's not physical evidence. >> who are you warring with right now? >> we ain't with nobody. it's just mainly a money thing. mainly we just doing our thing. everybody's doing their individual thing. >> you have had a history of feuding with who? blacks or hispanics? throughout the years over there. >> it's been a history of whoever stepped on our toes. >> knowing which gangs are fighting each other helps the osj unit decide who to remove from general population and where to search for weapons. >> we have found them with hacksaw blades, anything that -- a metal rod. in our ovens you have the grills that you put in the oven to cook on.

. >> many of you know him from the betty ford clinic and los angeles county jail.e welcome robert downey jr. >> reporter: gervais tells "nightline" he makes no apologies. >> that wasn't a room full of injured soldiers. >> give me the idea just how young she is, it will be 16 years before she's too old for clooney. >> reporter: and the megastar took it in stride. as for swift's counteroffensive, poehler couldn't resist a retort. i feel bad she was upset. i am a feminist and she's a young and talented girl. that being said, i do agree i am going to hell. but for other reasons. mostly boring tax stuff. perhaps the whole mean affair will wind up as fodder for swift's next number one hit. ♪ why you gotta be so mean >> reporter: for "nightline," i'm juju chang in new york. >> fair question. >>> it's time for tonight's closing arguments. when the president and congress couldn't agree on how to reduce the deficit, spending cuts were made across the federal government, even at the white house. in fact, the recent sequester has prompted the cancellation of much sought after

much of it between black and hispanic inmates, resulted in injuries and even death in the los angeles county jail system. sheriff lee baca blames the violence on a lack of staff, saying that his decision to close some facilities in order to deal with a budget shortfall has forced far fewer deputies to watch over a growing inmate population. >>> that's our report. thanks for watching. i'm john seigenthaler. >>> splitsville on the right. let's play "hardball." >>> good evening. i'm chris matthews in washington. let me start tonight with this. i watched the conservatives at their convention today and was impressed by the strong response to mitt romney. they seem stuck on him. as we used to say, stuck on mitty, they like him, still like him enough to give him a pretty good welcome today. this guy who lost an election he and many others thought they had made. so what this tells me is they really haven't adjusted to the verdict of the american people. they're still back there with santorum and trump and those others on the crazy wagon of right wing talk that basically turned off the country last year.

county jail. the first stop on the often long road of incarceration for gang members. >> every gang in los angeles county ends upcoming here we just don't have enough places to segregate everybody and keep them from assaulting each other. if one group has superior numbers over another and sparks a fight it is going to be on. >> officials at the los angeles county jail told us racially segregated gangs are responsible for most of the violence including riots, like this one captured on surveillance tape. but we met one inmate who blames the problem on the system. >> i never wanted to get involved in racial problems. when i went to prison, i didn't hate blacks. i didn't hate mexicans. i didn't hate indians. i didn't hate anybody like that. but when you go to these prisons and by the time you do ten years like me, if you're even halfway sane, it's a miracle. >> vanjlis garafolo was awaiting trial for the attempted murder of five police officers while on parole for an earlier conviction of voluntary manslaughter. >> the date i met vanjlis garafolo it was like meeting hannibal lecter with shackles. i sa

much of it between black and hispanic inmates, resulted in injuries and even death in the los angeles county jail system. sheriff lee baca blames the violence on a lack of staff, saying that his decision to close some facilities in order to deal with a budget shortfall has forced far fewer deputies to watch over a growing inmate population. that's our report. thanks for watching. i'm john seigenthaler >>> due to mature subject matter, viewer discretion is advised. >> america's prisons, dangerous, often deadly. there are 2 million people doing time. every day is a battle to survive and to maintain order. >> down on your feet. down! >> located in the deep south, holman correctional facility where most are serving life sentences. we spent months documenting life on the inside where the prisoners have nothing but time and nothing to lose. this is "lockup: holman extended stay." for the officers and staff working at holman, the biggest challenge is dealing with difficult inmates. >> you know you violating the law! you ain't got no business [ bleep ] with my -- >> took my mail and -- >> that's the part

crimes he committed at the los angeles county jail while awaiting trial on an outside murder/robbery charge that he was convinced would send him to prison for life. but when he went on trial for that original murder charge, something completely unexpected happened. >> they find me not guilty, and it righteously blew my mind. i had to laugh. the irony of it it was classic. >> knighten should have walked away as a free man, instead, he remained incarcerated until he was tried for his jailhouse murder. this time, he was found guilty and given 79 years in prison. but that murder was no random killing or crime of passion. assuming he was headed toward a life in prison anyway, he killed out of ambition. to join an organization he'd admired since childhood, the mexican mafia. >> so when you're a kid, you want to shoot for the stars. i want to be that. i want to be that guy. out on the streets, someone may want to be a ceo or own their own company, to be their own boss. you're back here, regardless, it's still power. and because of the power behind them, that being the mob, mexican mafia. >>

>> at the los angeles county jail, we encountered inmates who seemed impervious to tasers or anythinghat's known as a four-point restraint. >> in the inmate reception center, there's a lot of incidences, these guys coming straight off the street. they're angry and they're very violent. and they often go off. >> everybody else sit down. >> sit down. >> one inmate in particular just couldn't deal with it anymore. he went completely berserk. >> move it. >> freeze! >> move it! >> have a seat. >> and they had to restrain him. and one of the ways they do that is these four-point restraints. and they tell him exactly what they're going to be doing. >> mental health staff has ordered you to be placed in four point restraints. you understand that? >> yeah. >> i need your cooperation. the more you cooperate, the faster you will be out of points. >> sergeant gilbert duran supervises the carefully choreographed restraint process. >> the deputies have already been briefed as to who will take the upper body, who will take the lower body extremities. sometimes it takes a couple of extra deputies to

we found a very different atmosphere at the sprawling and constantly bustling los angeles county jail. >> stand up, spread your feet. shoulder width apart. lift up your left foot, wiggle your toes. >> l.a. county, which is probably one of the largest jail systems in the world, is a completely different experience. >> drop them, turn around. >> and the inmate reception center is gigantic. you know, they get 400 guys a day. 2,000 a week. hands up. hands over in place. reach back. no talking. no laughing. just reach back and pull them apart. spread them wide. >> while intake can be a traumatic experience for new inmates, settling into the day-to-day routine of prison life provides a very different challenge. >> the time isn't hard if you keep yourself busy. you know, it's a point of managing it. you know, you can either manage it, or it can manage you. >> waddell harper and his cellmate, sakha ren, have created ways to break the monotony with the few sparse items they are allowed in their cramped cell. >> the dice are made from toilet paper. >> roll them up. draw on them. that's basicall

the los angeles county jail is not a treatment center. you have heard people say those with mental disorders are not always violent. the majority of them are not. many times, the few that are, such as the virginia tech shooter and the tucson shooter have warning signs. yet the parents are helpless to stop him because of civil rights laws that ban them. the cause havoc when applied to some of the brain disorder. i loved my son, i wanted his rights protected, but no father should never be told bring your son back after he tries to kill someone or kill you. changing our commitment criteria is a much needed first step. but it will do absolutely no good if you have nowhere to get treatment. when my son had his breakdown, fairfax county, one of the richest counties in the nation, had a two week wait to get into a treatment center. the six-week wait to get a case manager, and an 18 year wait to get housing if you had a mental illness. that is shameful. since my son's first breakdown, he had been shot twice by the police with teasers. i hate to a

los angeles county sheriff lee bacca says more mentally ill people end up in jail when they're not gettingdications they need. is is that why the increase suddenly? >> i believe it is. i think that medication is the stabilizer for most mentally ill people. the money for that dried up with our california economy going south. and when they go off their meds, then they go back to the behavior that leads to a law enforcement solution. >> that was not the place for him to get the help he needed. >> reporter: catherine wooten of los angeles called 911 for help from her 23-year-old son terrence suffered a mental breakdown in october of 2011. >> the police came and i thought that they were going to take him to the hospital but he wound up in county jail. >> reporter: police tell us with few mental health beds available at state facilities, they have no choice but to leave the fate of people like terrence wooten to the criminal justice system. >> they have a mental ward in county but he wasn't really getting the counseling and the therapy that he needed. >> reporter: you're not a psychiatrist and t

los angeles county and let me tell you bail schedules are very high out there. but we work with the families, co-workers, and employers that want that person out of jail where they can continue to flourish in their society. the issue of -- well the pretrial is there is a misconception about which is fair and which isn't fair. i have to say for the sake of public safety, we offer a little bit of the bjs study that our statistics is true because we incorporate other people with a part of the skim in the game, if you will, the family and members and we do a better job of seeing people return to court. we don't judge, we just return them to court and make their appearances. >> there are a lot of organizations throughout the state that, you know, kind of pull their resources together to be able to engaged in some lobbying, i think it true for some associations and there is some lobbying for the california's association. do you know how much your organization spends on lobbying? >> we don't even have a paid lobbyist. but the sure ityty company there is a guess. i have no idea what their figure would be. >> i understand that you are also amen of american bail coalition

county jail. he said before coming here he was a member of a los angeles street gang and a meth addict. young man who enjoyed reading novels and writing poetry. >> i like to read a lot. i like nicolas sparks. "walk to remember." "notebook." >> oh, so like romantics? >> oh, yeah, i'm a sucker for that. >> even cry when you read the sad part? >> yeah. most of the guys don't want to admit that because, hey, we're in jail. you know. but i don't care. >> but miramontes was facing the possibility of a lifetime in prison. >> been almost two years. my charges are special circumstance murder. big case. big case. >> miramontes had entered a not guilty plea and was still awaiting trial when we met him. the night of the murder, he says he was visiting friends in an orange county gang and that they were all drinking and high on drugs. while driving around their neighborhood, his friend stopped to confront a 19-year-old man who had allegedly flashed a rival gang sign. >> what ended up happening was the orange county home boys exited the vehicle, and a fight ensued which turned into a stabbing, which