. >> in the heart of new york city is one of the country's most notorious jails, riker's island. its history has been filled with violence, its facilities overcrowded and deadly. we first visited riker's back in 1999, when the commissioner of the new york department of correction was bernard kerik. his get-tough on crime policies have continued today. the new york city department of corrections says the result is a remarkable 90% decrease in violence at riker's, which has led to a substantial reduction in the inmate population. five years later, our cameras went back inside rikers to see how this once infamous jail has re-invented itself. >> i've got friends here. i have acquaintances. you don't come here to make friends. >> i know i should have at least 80 something arrests, close to 100 arrests, and i've been here at least about 30 or 40 times. >> it is not a pleasant living space. we're not comfortable. we make ourselves feel comfortable to ease the fact that we're in jail. >> the inmates call rikers the rock. the penal colony. iraq island. the guards call it the meanest precin

bailed out comes to us. >> get arrested in the big apple and you're almost assured of a trip to rikers island. a 400-acre penal colony on the east river, directly under the flight path of the laguardia airport. connected to the mainland by a narrow two-lain bridge, the island is home to an average of 14,000 inmates in ten different facilities. >> we patrol the meanest precincts in america. when our officers go to work, everyday, they know everyone they run into is going to be a criminal. every criminal who has committed the worst act -- >> bring all your property with you. >> is coming through here if they're coming from new york city. >> they come off of the streets. they're tired, they're dirty, they're hungry. and you saw everything there, whether it was somebody who was from wall street who was charged with fraud or whether it was the lowest of the low of the drug dealers. >> we get between 80 to 90 admissions a day, around the clock, 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year. >> what size you wear? >> 8 1/2. >> guess what, 10 is your lucky number. these are air giulianis. you can ha

report of new york city's jail system reveals just how expensive a prison stay really is in fact rikers island just so happens to be one of the most expensive it neighborhoods and all of new york city now according to the report by the city's independent budget office the city spent an average of one hundred sixty seven thousand dollars per inmate in two thousand and twelve bringing the total cost of the jail to just over two billion dollars now it should be mentioned that eighty three percent of the jail costs go to employee wages and benefits and yes new york city apartments are notoriously tiny but still one hundred sixty seven thousand dollars for a nine by five jail cell tops the charts in order to offset the prisoner costs one jail in tennessee thinks it might have found a solution it's called pay to stay and it actually is and if he sees that it's exactly what the title suggests now prisoners at the anderson county jail in clinton tennessee will pay for just about everything they use nine dollars fifteen cents for pants six dollars twenty six cents for a blanket and a dollar twenty five

at rikers island jail, a bakery churns out nearly 90,000 loaves of bread per week while teaching inmates to bake. in many of the prisons profiled on "lockup," inmates have opportunities to learn skills that can help them find work on the outside. but all too many spend their time honing skills more suitable to mayhem and murder. >> i stabbed an inmate 12 times over some dope in front of the chow hall. >> i took a knife and stabbed him with it three or four times until he was dead. and then i butchered him with it. >> you find a piece of metal or something, file it down on the concrete. it ain't got to be sharp, it's just got to have a point. put your handle on it and do what you need to do. >> "lockup" crews are regularly exposed to the tools of a deadly trade. >> every prison we film in, there's always a shank museum, a place where the authorities display all of the weapons that are confiscated by staff. homemade weapons the inmates have made from bed springs or melted down plastic. they're truly ingenious but deadly as well. >> at california's san quentin state prison, we saw how sophi

county, miami-dade and new york's rikers island. they repse

they american prison population was exploding 600 to 700% my mother among her many hats work that rikers island i was aware from a young age about the phenomenon of mass incarceration and i was drawn and horrified by the way that one is drawn to something like a vocation. as for the other piece, i think our refueled of religious studies is populated by people who tend to be emphatically ambivalent about the traditions of their upbringing. i fit into that category. i was raised essentially an orthodox jewish by agnostics although i didn't figure that out until somewhat later in the game. in fact my orientation both through american social justice tradition stands independent about his very ethically minded. the commandments that pertain to one's relationship to the almighty and commandments that pertain to one's relationship with his fellow man or woman and i've always been on the latter half of the spectrum. that said, i say in the book that to honor the complexity of the world with my description as a scholar in the way that nietzsche's calls us to is about as theological as i get. i feel like

decade before that, we had studies in new york, they were looking at it and showing how rikers islandrisons across new york, it was the same seven neighborhoods. so yeah, we need to think about systemic and structural issues because it's not something band-aids on cancer can fix. we need to look at how to look at this and correct the last 30 to 40 years of tough on crime and drug war rhetoric and policy that have completely failed and left us with the greatest prison crisis in american history. >> it feels so difficult to me that on the one hand, this is a moment when so many african-americans might feel empowered at part of their country with an african-american president, that they were such a big part of electing. but then that experience of being thrown up against the wall, of being frisked, when you've done nothing wrong, separates you from your country, separates you from your sense of connection to your community. >> absolutely. obama, i was shocked he made the statement. i also, you know, want him to extend his concern about what's happening with police and prisons here, to li

the 1980's and 90's at a time when the american prison population is exploding, my mother worked rikers island. so i was aware from my young time and a young age about the phenomenon. i was always drawn and horrified by it in the way that one is drawn to something like a vocation. as for the other piece, i think religious studies is populated by people who tend to be emphatically ambivalence. i fit into that category. there was raised an orthodox jew , although it did not figure that out until later. in fact, my orientation both through judea's a man through american social justice, very ethically minded. a talk about it in the book. the commands that pertain to one's relationship to the almighty and his fellow man and woman. i have always been on the latter half of the spectrum. that said, i say in the book that to honor the complexity of the world with my descriptions as a scholar and the way is a bet as the logical as i get. i feel like my allegation is to try to do them justice. i hope to repay the debt. as a scholar incentive would a certain kind of violence when we erase that complexity.

the american prison population is exploding 600 or 700% and my mother among her others worked on rikers island so i was aware from the young time and at a younger age about the phenomenon of the mass incarceration. and i was always horrified by it in the way that one is drawn to something like a vacation. as for the other piece, i think the field of religious study is populated by people who tend to be emphatically ambivalent about the positions of their upbringing. i fit into that category. i was raised essentially an orthodox jew by agnostics although i didn't figure that out until somewhat later in the game. so in fact my orientation both through judaism also stands independent of that but very ethically minded and a distinction that i learned in the jewish state school that i talked about in the book. the amendments that pertain to one relationship the almighty and that pertain to one's relationship with a fellow man and woman, and i have always been on the latter half of the spectrum. with that said, i say in the book that to honor the complexity of the world with my description as a scho

they're the biggest providers of mental health care, rikers island, the l.a.unty jail. >> we turn them into prisons. >> how ironic. >> yes. >> illness, actually. >> and so -- >> you see it play out in the most disturbing, distressing and extreme ways but tragic everyday ways in terms of people coming into the criminal justice system, very ill sometime, that has a lot to do with our crime, the things that put them. heavily, heavily medicated and dumped back on the streets and it's a cycle that continues and continues and continues in and why do we allow it? why has nothing been done? i'm asking you, melissa, that. >> i'm supposed to be saying good-bye to you to say a footnote but i'll say good-bye for 15 seconds and come back and ask a couple more questions. sos and 6 weeks of sleep but one thing you don't want to lose is any more teeth. if you wear a partial, you are almost twice as likely to lose your supporting teeth. new poligrip and polident for partials 'seal and protect' helps minimize stress, which may damage supporting teeth, by stabilizing your partia