. >> the story behind the orange underwear at the tulsa county jail. >> get out of here. the david l. moss criminal justice center looks like any other office building in couple examine the tulsa county jail, on any given day, about 1800 men and women are incarcerated here. most are only accused of crimes and awaiting trial at the resolution of the cases. since that could range from days to year, jail officials say they strive to make the stay as comfortable as reasonably possible. >> we know you're in jail, you know you're in jail, why can't you have a chair that's comfortable to sit in while you're watching tv? why can't you have access to hot and cold water, access to food so you can snack and all of the necessities, but on top of that, because of the way we design our facility, inmates can leave their housing unit unescorted, people ask why all the time. why did you do that? my response is, why not? if we are going to let human beings maintain dignity, why not? you give to them until they prove they don't deserve it, then you take it away. and that's what we do. >> whe

go to ziprecruiter.com/offer6 ♪ [ bleep ] >> tulsa county jail! [ bleep ] tulsa county jail! inmates at the tulsa county jail are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. their one hour out can be spent either in the shower or rec yard. >> how are you doing? >> i'm doing pretty good. >> sergeant collette, who runs the unit, says he frequently checks in with the inmates and tries to help them adapt to the isolation. >> the brain is very powerful and you can fail to flourish and literally will yourself to death. i do not want that in here. it's like i tell these guys in the seg when i first meet them, i want you guys reading. i want you doing a little exercise in your cell. if i wanted mushrooms back here, i'd be a gardener. what i say to them is free your mind, your ass will follow. >> jacob england has been in segregation for nearly a year. he's followed sergeant collette's advice but has also participated in extracurricular activity with some of his neighbors. they call it cadillacing, and it involves using string to pass items between cells. >> what are you doing? >> cadillaci

call 888-429-5722 now. >>> more than 30,000 men and women are booked into the tulsa county jail everyave within hours. but on any given day, there are about 1,800 who reside here until their cases are resolved in court. many have prior stays at body the jail and in prison. few though have been as well known in the inmate population as jimmy maxwell. >> there are four or five names in the prison system you hear of. it's folklore. jimmy maxwell's one of them. he's a fighter, a good fighter. i don't ever remember of hearing him losing a fight. jimmy's no-nonsense. we all dealt dope in prison. business is business. if you didn't have his money, you would get socked in the jaw, or ball bat took to your head. >> he's notorious. that's all i can say. >> i've taken down a few heavies over the years. i haven't got a lot of tolerance for not paying me when i want -- when i'm supposed to be paid. >> it's the living in there. dope, cigarettes. that's just -- that's the -- that's the dollar in there. that's how we survive. >> but even in prison, maxwell says he did better than just survive. >> bou

side. >> i want a life like everybody else. >>> during most of the four months we spent at the tulsa county jail, kenneth witty was housed in disciplineary segregation due to his many conduct reports. >> hostage situation. taking of the cell. >> one morning, we arrived at the jail to discover witty had been more trouble than usual. he used a food tray to smash his cell window after officer hunt told him he had to wait to take a shower. >> inmate witty says when can i go in to my shower? i talk to him like, well, i'm not quite sure if you've had your shower yet and i can't go by your word, let me talk to my partner and i'll get back to you. he just went on break, he'll be back in 30 minutes. >> he told me it will be another 30 minutes. i have to verify that you haven't had a shower. i was standing here with dry hair, with a dry towel, telling you i need a shower. >> i can't go by your word. i'm not going to have you take two showers when everybody else in the facility has had one shower. >> i blew up. i didn't even see it coming. i walked back to the end of the rack, grabbed my tray off the floor

tell ariel that we love her and that everything's going to be okay. >> officials at the tulsa county jailnd women in jail or prison continue to increase, so too does the number of parents who have left children behind. >> all right, i love you. >> it's estimated that there are more than 1.7 million american children with at least one parent behind bars. nearly twice as much as ten years earlier. the jail offers several educational and religious programs along with one designed to help parents reconnect with their kids. >> she's feeling poorly and i'm taking her a surprise. >> it's called story time. >> mama said not to speak to any strangers. >> we bring the inmates down to the library and they're able to pick out a children's book and they read it, it's recorded, and then the tape and the book is sent out to the child. despite their circumstances, despite the bad choices that they've made to come here, they still want to stay connected to their kids and, you know, want to show their kids that they're doing something positive. >> let's go! meeks and stokes, come here! >> lester stokes has

>> months after we left the cleveland jail, we were filming in tulsa county jail and suddenly this huge story broke. and this teenage girl, who had been the focus of robert wolford's story at the beginning, suddenly became international news. >> good evening. it came down to frantic 911 call. that was the start of it. soon after the world would learn three women missing and feared dead had been inside a cleveland, ohio, home for as long as a decade and were now free. >> this teenage girl that robert had talked about so much, amanda, was amanda berry. the girl who, with two other girls, had been held captive by ariel castro for ten years. and we were all just shocked. we were completely shocked. >> amanda berry alive with her family. a picture some never thought they would see. finally safe but only after a harrowing escape and call to 911. >> help me. i'm amanda berry. >> do you need police, fire or ambulance? >> i need police. >> okay. and what's going on there? >> i've been kidnapped and i've been missing for ten years. and i'm here, i'm free now. >> all right, we're sending them, oka

. >>> during our extended stay shoot at the tulsa county jail, we met tara goddard.he was about to serve four years in prison for a crime that often results in little more than a few nights in jail. >> there ain't much to do up here. >> nothing at all. >> but read, comb out some hair, eat. >> argue. >> argue. >> though the technical term for her crime was illegal use of a computer, goddard's conviction resulted from her career as an online prostitute. prior convictions for prostitution and drugs contributed to the length of her sentence. >> i have probably been in this jail about ten times but this is the second time i've been in orange. you know. i always just get bailed out. >> goddard's last customer was an undercover cop. she had never served time in prison and was awaiting transfer there when we met her. >> girls in the here will joke around, you know, be like, you'll be somebody's bitch or something. which i'm a little nervous. because i can fight, i can defend myself. but you know. i'm a little nervous. >> goddard says watching "lockup" has helped prepare her

but at the tulsa county jail, pam hamm told us she learned some of her most useful ideas from watchingh the fishing line and the little soap. that's how i learned to make the fishing line and everything is from "lockup." >> glad to see our show is educational for you guys. >> the staffs at most jails consider these homemade devices to be contraband. sometimes they will confiscate them and other times they might just look the other way. but when inmates attempt to improvise one other comfort from home, it will be confiscated and destroyed immediately. >> homemade wine or hooch is one of the most common things we encounter when we're in jails. they're always trying to make it, and, of course, staff is always trying to find them making it. >> i was just walking around the unit and i happened to run across him making some hooch, so so what i'm going to do is i'm going to confiscate it from him and let him go about his day. >> how did you make it? >> an orange, fruit punch kool-aid and water. it usually takes about four days for it to be real strong. that one ain't got nobody drunk. it just

. >> i was filming at the tulsa county jail, and it was the middle of the day, and i get this e-mailwas telling all of us that ezekiel had been shot and killed. and i was shocked. i actually think i started to cry a little bit, but because i was in the midst of this other shoot, you know, i had to stay professional. but it just haunted me. >> a few days later, an article had been written that actually named a suspect, and i read this article and right after that, i received a text from the jail saying that the suspect had, in fact, been an inmate at the jail while we were filming. once i heard that, i decided to look at our release log for all the inmates that we had signed, and lo and behold, his name was on there. >> two months later, police arrested the prime suspect in ezekiel's death, michael souter. he was charged with murder and pled not guilty. >> we had known this man. i watched this man holding hands with the brothers during a prayer circle. >> may yes bless the less and unfortunate. in jesus' name we pray, amen. >> y'all ain't brothers. >> home video we were able to acquir