year, nearly 70,000 people make their way through one of the five facilities that comprise the orange county jail, up to 3,000 of them can be found at orange county's largest facility, theo lacey. one way to measure the challenge of managing such a large inmate population can be found in the theo lacey kitchen, where inmate workers prepare 9,000 meals per day. >> i've actually heard that if an inmate had to be incarcerated they prefer to come to orange county jail because they are fed well. they are fed more colorfully. and our nutritional guidelines and standards are the same as the rest of the state. but we put a lot of care and energy into what we do. >> while lower security level inmates eat in the chow hall, the majority of inmates are confined to their cells. their meals are delivered by inmate workers, like robert mason. >> really helps that i used to work at denny's. it makes me thankful where i am at because at least we get to come out three times a day. it passes the time a lot quicker. these guys are locked down 23 hours a day, 22 hours a day. time goes by real slow up there. that's wh

housewives of orange county. >> few people know that better than orange county sheriff sandra hutchins. among other things, she runs orange county's other gated community. the orange county jail. >> it is dynamic. every day is a bit different. so you constantly have to be re-evaluating that and the folks work in the housing areas are very astute at identifying problems early on and that's the key. you're dealing with a population that doesn't want to be there, they're not necessarily there with people they like, they're probably facing some very challenging times in their lives. >> the greatest challenge for many inmates in the orange county jail is uncertainty. unlike prison inmates, who have already been convicted and sentenced for crimes they have committed, most jail inmates stand charged with crimes, and are still working their cases through the court system. the process can take years. so some try to make their jail cells home. >> this is the living room right here. we keep the books and the magazines and trash. this is the kitchen where we eat and everything. this is the bathroom, the washing machine/shower, bird bath. >> with such close quarters, deputies constantly m

county's other side. the theo lacy jail is the largest of five jail facilities in the orange county system. it sits on 11 acres and has a capacity of more than 3,000 inmates. >> let's go. hands behind your back. back row go to the house. >> marc gonzales is one of them, and except for his jail-issued t-shirt and scrubs, he could easily be mistaken for any other fun-loving oc teenager. >> i love surfing. i love the ocean. it's the best. the promised land here. nothing could go wrong except for robbing a weed store and getting arrested. my mom is in a lot of shock right now. it's the first offense. my baby is robbing weed stores? what does he need that for? >> unlike most inmates in the orange county jail system who have not been convicted but are awaiting trial, gonzales pled guilty to robbery and received a one-year sentence. with good behavior he could be out in nine months, and if his family gets its way back in minnesota. >> i have a bunch of newspapers under my bed because my mom sent me a subscription because i wanted to stay updated with what was going on in minnesota, concert-wise an

. >> day-to-day management of the orange county jail in southern california is up to sheriff's deputies. some work permanently at the jail while most others rotate through, then return to street patrol. >> all right. let's line up. let's do a gear check. let's line up on the wall right here. >> a select group of deputies make up the emergency response team, a s.w.a.t.-like unit called to action when inmates refuse orders or pose an imminent threat. >> hang left. >> watch out, watch out, watch out. >> wielding a broken mop stick and other cleaning supplies, joseph etima, who has pled not guilty to a murder charge and is awaiting trial, has refused to return to his cell. >> he's upset because the hispanic inmates think he's black. he's saying he's not. he's saying he's hispanic. they don't want to program with him, so he wants out of there, and this is his way of doing it. we don't know what's going to happen once we get inside there. we don't know what the other inmates are going to do. when you go inside there, watch each other's back. handle any situation that arises. our job is not to

on our first day of filming "extended stay" inside orange county jail in california, we covered the traumag man's first day in jail. >> i'm in the orange county jail. i'm like in a room with no windows, no nothing. nobody -- i don't know what's going on. i don't know. >> when we met 20-year-old richard ruiz, he had already completed the booking process and his first court arraignment and was now engaged in another jailhouse ritual, the first call home. >> so i'm just sitting in a room. i don't know if it's light or daylight. i lose track of time. i get woken up by all of the slamming doors and stuff. like i don't know what's going on in here. i skip all meals because i don't want to eat. >> ruiz had been arrested 48 hours earlier for the first time in his life, charged with intent to sell narcotics. he hoped his father would be able and willing to bail him out. >> it's $2500. 10% of $25,000 bail. thank you, dad. all right. yep. i love you. bye. he doesn't deserve a phone call from here. but it's all my fault that i'm here. it's no one's fault but myself. >> there's a term that people use c

the time of our shoot in orange county, shanholtzer was appealing her six-year sentence and requesting that if she did have to serve the time, she do so at the orange county jailhere she felt more protected. >> that's one of my saints. with my name. st. therese. >> very nifty. >> she also made a few good friends in the jail and developed a constructive daily routine. >> i'm not surprised that people that can't necessarily get it together out in the real world come in here and function very well in a controlled environment. many people do in here. >> hey there, handsome. thank you. >> i am still learning life because i didn't know life. i'm 30 years old, just learning how to drive. but you know what, i'm doing it. i'm learning it. there's a lot of girls in here that don't know how. and i'm going to school, and i have dreams now, and i can help people. that's what i want to do. >> coming up -- >> hi, boys. >> peaches was one of those inmates that stands out in your mind years after you leave a prison. he's very flamboyant. very forthright. very honest. >> one inmate's independence is put to the test by the convict code. guess what: your insurance company will on

>> when we first met clarence butterfield he was incarcerated more than a yoor year at the orange county jail in southern california. like most jail inmates he was not convicted but incarcerated awaiting trial. he pled not guilty to the murder of her daughter but that didn't stop him from telling jokes. >> you can't come in here with that pig it's not a pig, it's a duck. i was talking to the duck. >> clarence butterfield is an older gentleman, old man i guess you could call him, a giddy old man, happy to be here. >> okay. >> diagnose as hyper verbal. you can't all be winners, now, can we? is there has to be people like me to make real winners of life look really good. >> butterfield jumped from one subject to another subject really quickly and really hard to follow in conversation. >> i'm kind of ignored and been married for 26 years i'm used to being ignored anyway. >> he would answer about something completely off the wall that we weren't even talking about. >> i love germans they are great. but you don't want to be locked in a cell with one for five months, which i was. >> butterfield was

paula at the orange county jail. >> i'm a fighter. i use my fists.sed to go to the boxing gym and trained. >> i like the shot of paula and the basketball, she stood out and that looked like a really difficult thing to do. >> i look pretty much good for my age. i'm 44 years old and look a lot better than some of those youngsters. i know i'm handsome. >> reef us had an incell work out that would rival most of the men as well. >> the impression it makes upon me is how disciplined they are, they keep track of every sit-up or push-up or squat, every curl, you name it. i noticed one day there was an inmate that was pacing back and forth in their cell. and she had playing cards and she would place a card on the table and go back to the end of the cell and come forward as put another card down. we asked what that was all about? >> what are the cards for? >> to count my miles. three decks of card of one mile. it makes it easier so you don't work in circles all day. >> working out is also a good way to kill time. there's a lot of time to be spent in prison. an

at the orange county jail in southern california we met a transgender inmate who prefers to be called >> myself and my celly are dressed as girls and the rest are dressed as guys. >> despite his physical appearance cortez was in fact a male inmate housed in a men's unit. >> if you are in in the process of having a sex change if you have your male genital parts you are considered a male and will be housed there, whether or not you have breasts or -- it's what's below the belt that counts. >> at first it was startling watching these tapes when they came in from the field we thought we were seeing inmates wearing women's gowns or mini-skirts and we were thinking to ourselves, it's odd that jail officials actually allow this. but it turned out this that they were standard jail issued t-shirts and bed sheets that the inmates converted into women's clothing and they actually did a pretty convincing job of it. >> try to make the best of it you know. just try to doll up a little bit. we have our own personal revlon and l'oreal, mac crayons. we wet them. we play with it. get it nice and dark a

. >> we met miramontes at the orange county jail.e he was a member of a los angeles street gang and a meth addict. it seemed out of sorts with the 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 or

is the largest county jail system in the country, and then we are, in the north side of the state, one of the most under crowded jail systems in the country, we really are apples and oranges and i think that because of the good work we are focusing on reducing recidivism and alternative to incarceration and we see a kind of chemistry that i think that is really unique to san francisco's criminal justice system and i don't think that los angeles has that. >> on what will happen if when we are in this program and they actually violate, you know, in terms of the hdem. >> okay. >> they would offense, and they would, if they are arrested and they are a repeat offender, then they would certainly suffer the consequences. and as i am sure that the da will prosecute and that will push for that prosecution, if in fact if they violate the offense and that is why the police officers are empowered like a police officer to make those arrest and our people work around the clock and making sure that there is compliance. and which is why we have such a strong compliance rates in 2013. and we will keep you posted on 2014 as the year progresses and concludes. >> so basically, it is individu

jail. >> it seems to be a pretty straightforward case but it's getting a lot of attention. >> unbelievable. comments keep flying around. part of this is this reality show, we're looking at orange countyr is tlink's a sociological factor here. we have seen sobehavior. they say he was being maltreated by the other parent. parents have escalated their behavior and this is about the worst of it. >> pretty bad. rikki, thank you very much. >>> video game competitions are exploding in popularity. gaming tournaments now pack arenas, and millions of spectators follow the axion line. amazon recently paid nearly a billion dollars for broadcaster twist. here's how they're even offering athletic scholarships to gamers. >> this is what they think of with college athletics. hard hits, big plays, and fierce competition on the gridiron. but now the landscape of college sports is moving from the locker room to the living room. >> this is a varsity sport right here. >> reporter: gaming is now quickly becoming part of the college sports arena. at robert morris university in chicago, associate director curt melcher is now offering scholarships to video game users. >> how is sitting in front of a screen a