. >>> on the western edge of southern indiana is the wabash valley town of carlisle where main street conjures images of a bygone era, and except for the daily passing of the csx freight line, this one-light town might be all but forgotten. just a couple miles down u.s. 41, however, is evidence that carlisle is anything but forgotten. >> it's 2 1/2 hours away from everywhere. it's just the middle of nowhere. what goes on out here? prison. that's what goes on out here. >> surrounded by little else but big skies, the wabash valley correctional facility houses more than 2,000 convicted felons, including some of the highest security prisoners in the state. it is a fortress among farms. >> we have a total of seven towers blanketing the entire facility, including one tower that's in the center of our south yard. we've got the two sets of fences all the way around the facility. the inner fence is a stun fence, it's a nonlethal stun fence. the outside fence another 14-foot fence covered with razor ribbon. shaker alarm on the motion detector. motion detector in between the fences. we think our

. >> with more than 2,000 inmates, the wabash valley correctional facility in southwestern indiana has a larger population and more acreage than the rest of the small town in which it's located. >> carlisle is a very small community, approximately 1,200 is their population. it's comprised of a school. it has a grocery store. it has a gas station, a couple of little restaurants, a dollar store and that's really about all that's in carlisle. >> while carlisle might be a remnant of a simpler time, inside the twin security fences of wabash is evidence of how some aspects of society have grown harder. >> we're seeing a lot more offenders coming in much younger than they were before and much more violent than in the past as well. correctional officers are the backbone of the facility. they're the ones dealing with the offenders on a daily basis. they are frontline. >> i've been hearing about the correction setting since i was 8 years old. i grew up around it. so coming in here was actually kind of easy for me. i already knew what to expect. i've heard all the war stories. >> officer jarrod m

. >>> indiana's wabash valley correctional facility houses nearly 2,200 inmates.ore than one-third of them are doing time for serious violent crimes. unless isolated in solitary confinement, the vast majority of inmates live in two-man cells. pairings are critical and avoiding a volatile mix of cell mates is a constant challenge. >> we try to not put people doing life with people who are going home next year or blacks with whites or white supremist with someone with a child molestation case just to resolve the conflict before it happens. >> but even with careful screening conflicts can still arise between cell mates. >> a report there has been an assault. there is a guy in the infirmary with several injuries to his facial and head area. at this point he is saying he had a seizure. we're going to go over it, try to talk to him. he may have been assaulted with a hot pot. we're going to talk to him and see if he is willing to talk at all. >> the victim is curt its cash who is serving a 29-year sentence for burglary. >> cash? >> yeah. >> what's up with you, man? >> yo

at prisons like wabash valley correctional facility in indiana. but wabash houses men doing time for more serious crimes. men like jeremy blanchard. >> i have never been a drug abuser or a drunk. i knew what i done when i done it. i knew the heinous nature of what i done. i can still to this day remember nearly every blood spot that was in that house. i can remember the wallpaper, the way the bodies were laid. i can remember nearly everything that happened that night. >> blanchard has served a little more than one year of a 195-year sentence. but his facial tattoos will forever commemorate both his crime, the triple murder and the moniker the media gave him, the kokomo slayer. >> that's who i am and what i'm about. yes. >> blanchard tracked down his former girlfriend, her mother, and her mother's boyfriend when they traveled to kokomo, indiana to attend a funeral. blanchard broke into their home, hid inside and stabbed all three to death with a butcher's knife. >> a friend of jessica's told me that she had an abortion and that's what probed my ange

it's easy for me to do crazy stuff when i'm high. >> wabash valley correctional facility has unveiledew weapon against meth dealers and addicts in its system. a drug rehabilitation unit called c.l.i.f.f. the program had only been open for a few months when our camera came to visit but was already operating at full capacity. >> clean life is freedom forever is what the acronym really stands for. they have to really work to be involved in it. they have homework. they're on the go from about 5:00 in the morning until about 10:30, 11:00 at night with activities, groups, education. and what i like about it is the individual that's here has to be here of their own accord. it's voluntary. they have to want to change and want to do something. because it does require them to make a lot of effort. >> i just wrote to my mother, who is my best friend. she's the one that's been there for me more than anybody in the world. i love my mom a lot. and i just -- i'm thankful that i got a program like this now and hopefully i can get something out of this so i can show her that i -- that i can change and

when we visited indiana's wabash valley correctional facility, officers in the security housing uniting with the latest in a string of violent incidents involving convicted burglar, douglas mccombs. >> since he's been inside the shu, he's been on strip cell. when you see the offender coming out of his cell only wearing his underwear, he was on strip cell for resisting staff or trying to assault staff before. we have had trouble with him on about every range we've put him on so far. >> i can't get along with people too much. especially when they're evil. >> one of the people mccombs claims was evil, officer sachen. >> an average day in the shu can be pretty mundane. you have rec and showers to do. chow to serve, md sick call, so on and so forth. some days like today get a little more exciting. we had an offender who became belligerent in the shower. >> the offender was mccombs who told us he had good reason to be i need something to wash, a bar head, getting mouthy and this sit up there and talk to him. i started at the end and worked eds manufacturing. back in the u.s. economy this y

. >>> more than 2,000 inmates are housed behind the walls of the wabash valley correctional facility.as they just found out. they were recently moved from the larger corner cell to a smaller on the other side of the unit. >> why did they move you out of the big corner area. >> did you see the dude in that cell? he is about this big. >> sheer bigger and i think he needed that cell more than we did. >> you think they moved you out because there was a bigger guy? >> i think it was a handicapped cell andy woor both kind of small. i am bigger than him, but the guy that is bigger than me needed the cell more than me. they looked like they were in a match box in here. >> for stroud, the only thing that changed is the view. >> it's all prison. that's how i looked at it. whether the cell was times the size or half of this size, i have been in worse situations. i look at it like we are still in prison and still can't go home. the only environment that really matters is the environment right here. you know what i mean? i got a nice view. i got a view that i look at now. >> i will step over here.

. ♪ >>> the wabash valley correctional facility in indiana houses a large number of inmates who are ortally ill at the time of their crimes. >> where you going, boys? come back here! >> when "lockup" visited there, we met two such inmates. they killed after their own minds turned on them. and their murders took on dimensions that were not only shocking, they were unimaginable. >> my name is howard franklin street jr. i'm 38 years old. i've been down since 1993 for shooting my mom. >> during our first day of shooting at wabash, our "lockup" crew met frank street, an inmate housed in the prison's residential treatment unit. at the time of the interview, street was experiencing involuntary tremors due to his medication. >> i started having delusions that people were out to hurt me. and i had this video cassette tape of a party and showed people hurting me, you know. and i showed it to my parents, and they said there ain't nothing to it. i thought you guys were crazy. they were thinking sane, they were sane. i was the crazy one. >> a short time later, street's delusions got the better of h