in Massachusetts Walpole state prison is the end of the line it houses 700 of the state's most violent unmanageable offenders 3 correction officers come to work here every day their job is to impose order onto an environment that constantly threatens to spin out of control morning how you doing now you're not carrying any bullets this security checkpoint is the only way in or out since it was opened in 1956 no one has ever escaped from Walpole okay two cameras when you guys are carrying do you know that aluminum foil is contraband thank you and I'm
going to stamp your inner right wrist just in case you guys get lost in there I don't think you want to spend the night right what do they make out of aluminum for just about anything make little bombs out of they use matches anything with a spot on that's it's not allowed in institutional how do you make a bomb out of if you have 24 hours in your C you can think of a lot of ways you have some smart inmates in here we can come to work one morning and not go home um and
certainly that that plays heavily on your mind sometimes we've had people quit the first day that they come in some people it takes them a little bit longer but you know within a short period of time whether this is for you or not we came here to follow an 11 member team known officially as the interp perimeter security unit or IPS they are the police in a world composed entirely of the state's most hardened criminals same thing okay just step up there what gets you into walpool is repetitive misbehavior at other institutions we have inmates
serving sentences in here ranging from um drug convictions to multiple homicides um and it runs the entire gamut um it's not just based on your crime the majority of is based on your behavior within hours one gang member has slashed another you P sh out of here the IP security unit has recovered the weapon a handmade steel shank Captain Billy hang want something was tampered with down that might be it two screws it looks a little long for the clamp uh spoon is rounded he may have cut that yeah it is cut on the end
last year alone 98 inmates were seriously assaulted at Walpole and 260 weapons were found where they getting that from jimmyo Riv if this is the way Society wants to run their prisons in an orderly fashion we have to investigate crimes within the prison we're not going to call the local police to come in here and do that it's our jurisdiction it's our responsibility to do that and it folds right back up again on the other side I'm pulling that off snapping off front still looks the same but the back Edge is gone have to check
my brain is mangled through the process of interrogation the security unit hopes to gain information about other homemade weapons hidden within the cell block hey if he kicks something in later on we can do something for him maybe y we'll guarantee is out naturally but yeah he says he's all done because informational Pur his information Line's done okay cuz if he goes back now he's a hero you know what I'm saying now I think the next one may be shaking the whole block that's I'm waiting for that one next you know it's coming yeah you
know it's coming that's all right but we got to we got to be able to uh I don't know we got to be able to go in there and take our time really take our time and just go through every little every little thing that's in that the interrogation proves successful and Lieutenant grai orders a surprise Shakedown of the cell block known as Plymouth 2 which are 20 right now give them your name 45 44 43 let's go all right all set ready go ahead go ahead go go go the block these guys in Alex
I hear all these toilets flushing does that mean anything yeah they're probably flushing things they're not supposed to have in our cell paperwork maybe even weapons so shakedowns are a logistical nightmare the goal is to empty all 45 cells while keeping gang members from attacking one another we got to be real careful in this block because there's five sectors and you got to really be careful of who you let out with who there's five sectors of uh nine inmates each those nine are compatible with each other and if we kind of intermingle sectors we're asking
for troubles be cognizant of who's out with who we're going to try to stay within the sectors Danny what we're looking for also are those uh hard toothbrushes the oral bees the oral you know what they look like take those take this line of business is kind of uh paramilitary I like to look at it as paramilitary as opposed to uh being like a police department my father was in the service so uh I'm an army brat so I think that brought me a long way because he was kind of a squared away person he
liked to have his uniform squared away and his boots shine so you you learn you learn from that been having a problem with these eyeglasses because they're in inside these uh ear pieces that's what they are there's a sharp metal thing that's already sharpened to a point and these guys been stripping off the plastic and using these As Weapons let's go see what this guy's up to yeah stand over in the slap sink why because you can't be with these dudes right in the slop sink all right what's up with this these inmates try to
be intimidating so uh you kind of call their Bluff you have to know when they're not bluffing of course but you have to meet force with Force and and uh we will always come out the Victor you got a prescription for these I use them just for yeah around huh yeah okay we'll be checking that out I take I don't give the guys in a second here if you notice I've been constantly looking up at them if they start going astray or if they're doing something silly I'm going to be right on it Kio van
or van K see if you're supposed to have some glasses cuz uh we're missing oh definitely removing those where's the two ends he don't know he threw them in the trash he's not going to be able to get a new pair that's correct he says he needs him around not even reading little retrieving line here fellas what is that it's a retrieving line uh when they're locked in they can send uh they can put a weight on the end of it and send things around to anybody in the block you know they throw it over
the tier and the next guy will pass it down it's a way of getting things around to the in the block I'm going to tell I want to check this toothbrush out because it looks like it may be one of the ones we're looking for he's got this wrapped around pretty good here EXC no there was another question I had too van Kio Koo can we check and see if he's got a current prescription on eyeglasses oh stinger this is a heating device what they do is they uh plug this into the wall socket and
it's two pieces of metal usually a as you can see it's an old nail clipper long as you keep them separated by a piece of cardboard or a piece of plastic you can plug this into the wall and this will start heating up cherry red Hut put they put it in a cup of water and it boils the water see the tough part about that is that if it gets Wicked Hut like you would have it you know on top of your stove and throw it at the staff got your stinger last year 24 officers
or nearly 10% of the workforce were violently assaulted by inmates often during routine operations like this somebody's got to watch your back I mean you can't be doing it you got your eye in that camera right there some of these guys I'm telling you you know you turn your back and you get laxed and you walk in the tears someone can reach out and do something silly to you even if it's not life threaten and you still don't want to be disrespected like that got watch watch that camera guy man he's going to get jumped
he's going to get stabbed watch the camera guy close one n all right listen up nine block luciao Cox Gill diver what one Fernandez D this morning the security unit is trying to head off a racial conflict left unchecked this is the sort of activity that can set off riots Sergeant Steve Kennedy and Alex Rodriguez are assigned to a surveillance operation to monitor the inmates thank you from an observation Gallery Alex serves as the eyes watching the inmates through one-way mirrored glass we picked up some information yesterday that uh possible racial um problem was happening
yesterday it was a large number of blacks and a large number of whites had a discussion um from there they dispersed and what we're doing today is just keeping an eye on what we call like the Heavies um guys who pretty much have a lot of word will say in the block he's trying to um get a racial thing going between the whites and the blacks he he um is he white or yeah he's a white guy he's one of the he's an older white guy maybe in his mid-40s trying to get these younger kids
up and coming to join him Walpole is an outdated maze-like facility but the IPS security unit has managed to turn the ventilation shafts and inner corridors into hidden listening posts they're aware that we do come down here and monitor them but if if they hear our radio going or if they hear us Creek on a on uh on one of the grates what they'll do is they'll yell IPS behind the block so that way it warns the other inmates in the unit that we're back there but as long as we're quiet they should have no
indications that we're back there be careful there with your flashlight because that window right there is not a one-way mirror they can see you we're GNA go up to the second floor [Music] now what SS G head over to 33 did you copy that I'm here right now I can't make it out yeah did you get anything out of that one and Paul what cell do you have man the whole crew is in cell 34 but they're in front of the cell so I don't know what you can pick up they can see you out
back there you wouldn't believe what you heard you have one guy come over to another guy hey hey John I'm looking to get a weapon you know what do you got well I know a guy who's got a a 12in piece of Steel I know another guy who's got a pick oh okay all right right great what do you want for talking about what the who's making the home brew tonight and uh what time they're going to what time they're going to get together and split it up whoa you all right wple will always be
[Music] wple they're stuck with us and we're stuck with them until further notice anyway Alex Rodriguez has particular firsthand knowledge about gangs from having been raised in the Inner City there are so many gang members here they're kept isolated in four designated cell blocks to prevent them from gaining new recruits yeah we're going to we're going to straighten that up prison gangs are highly organized making them the biggest threat to security the mere presence of our cameras seems to have set them off no nobody's face is going to be on I know that's not the
point though you know what I'm saying it's not up to me I just follow orders man we're going to get them out of what's going on huh what's going on yeah they're not happy so probably be better off to um do it from outside okay want you no they didn't want us in there uh basic basically uh they're just giving us a heads up you know hopefully we have that respect we can relate with each other it should be no biggy though and who would they uh who would they most be angry at me what
because I'm the gang officer and I should have known better and that's how they play it dealing with gangs involves unique risks their power can extend far beyond the Prison Walls a year and a half ago uh I had an incident where number of guys showed up in front of my house um threatened me um basically told me to stop doing what I'm doing but um no you know nothing assaultive no physical action occurred they they walked away I walked away um so it was you know it was a big thing sometimes you got to
be very careful on how you you relate with these guys they need want to find out whether you live they have no problem doing threats from inmates come in many forms this afternoon the security unit has intercepted an intimidating letter to a state prosecutor we wrote a letter to the district attorney's office the state police call it's a real nice letter um de Mr O'Reilly parenthesis Mr dead man I hope that when you get this letter that you're dead I'm going to have my people put a bomb in your car I'll also have a bomb
in your house and yours um how's your wife doing I'm sure you don't want anything to happen to her and it also says P.S get back to me um cuz you'll die real soon so count your blessings Kenny I like you to take a look at this here death threats and what have you we need somebody to go down and take him out and I have a word with them okay on the streets you have a situation with the middle sex uh attorney's office yeah yeah I got a problem with them did you write them
any letters I wrote them letters recently um about two weeks ago or something like that you're going to have to start seeking some better Avenues than this you send out things to these people in these high places it's going to come back and haunt you buddy and you just came out of a situation over the weekend where you got involved with the offer down un doing the same damn thing yeah know he threatened an officer yesterday too he uh threw juice in the officer's face and did threaten his him with bodily harm and death you're
not going to go too far like that you know what I mean yeah now whatever you're doing time what are you doing t for for man for um uh supposedly killing my uncle you know I got deep problem you know I got like a personality problem my man I be a thugsta next me I be a cry you know a sh little baby type person okay I can't think of anything else can you want off Riva Dave we're all set thank you I've been here 16 years and everybody in here is a a bad guy
and they may yeah get under your skin if they know more about you than what what meets the eye here at your workplace they're going to utilize that to their advantage sure no question about that little we he stories that um inmates you know spit in the food there stories they uh squirted semen in the food anything you know something falls on the floor they put it back in you know the worst possible thing you can think someone can do the food they probably done it so that's why a lot of you see a lot
of the old times will never never touch it they'll bring their own food but um I eat it [Music] here's my question is Charlie banging because he wants to go to yach Charlie B geta you tell Charlie that you're in charge of the T and they get his Recreation however he does not dictate to you when he goes to yach he'll be allowed to go to yach when you decide he's to go up Charlie Chase is considered the most violent and unmanageable inmate at Walpole originally convicted of armed robbery and murder he has racked up
a record 132 disciplinary offenses Behind Bars earning him the longest sentence ever in the ddu that's right get him down get um as far as Charlie's concerned he's stripped all the time his cell is shaken down because he's a major um Escape risk as well as a threat to the security of the institution he's caught all the time with makeshift Contraband he's caught with weapons okay he's got a swas sticker painted right here Steve he's got he's got one on his tra door too he's very disruptive down here I don't think there's been one consistent
month that he's behaved himself so his time down here isn't counting and that goes on a month-to-month basis do you think he's crazy crazy tries to come off like that but theoretically I don't think he's crazy no [Applause] given his often bizarre behavior Charlie's lawyers question whether solitary confinement is in fact driving him insane along with 10 other ddu inmates Charlie is named in a class action lawsuit claiming that the ddu employs cruel and unusual punishment all this that you're witnessing is a conspiracy to keep a good man down that's all it is he's a
clone no it's not the right opinion but he is how long you been in here Charlie how long I've been here yeah um 6 years this this year when you getting out I don't know I got another 9 years left yeah they took a lot of good time for me you know like I said earlier it's it's like a conspiracy that set me up to leave me here you know what I me okay thank you Charlie we've had our problems down here a lot of it's um been with forc moves in the cells um mmat
refusing to come out of their cells refusing to exit their cell so a team would be put together wearing protective gear and try to get him out some ddu inmates are considered so dangerous that it can require as many as six officers in full body armor to extract them from their cells go go go go go [Music] this particular move involves inmate Charlie Chase for legal reasons such incidents are always videotaped by prison officials you accept it if you violate rules and regulations that you're going to be punished but then there's a fine line between
what's punishment and what's torture you know a guy that's behaving in a an odd manner because of being psychologically unbalanced is a lot different than what I knowingly did I escaped I mean I knowingly knew what I was doing but an inmate that's uh having a psychotic episode and as a consequence of that behavior is put into ddu something's very wrong with that you know that I have a problem dealing with how you go home tomorrow morning what are you wrapping up what's it been like for you do [Music] you if we put microwaves and
uh and refrigerators and washing and dryers in their cells they' find something else to come complain about I mean you can see the living conditions are not that bad some of the most dangerous inmates here show serious symptoms of mental illness hands right your mouth and for the security unit dealing with these individuals can be intensely frustrating well this inmate sent a letter to one of the mental health workers he's been sending letters to everybody so I'm just going to go through it and see what we got here a lot of it is just nonsense
stuff aggravation type things and there's a nice little package of something here I have no clue what it is I'm starting to get an aroma of it now and it smells like human regurgitation you know how many letters I've gone through a Ys over the last couple of months with with feces in them and everything else in them I mean I don't really want to open it up because the lettuce stinks and I'll probably stink up this whole room when I unseal this bag so what did did you was a handwriting analysis expert you know
hired to detect that that was my handwriting it's not it's not needed so you saying that there's no possible way that another inmate could have afforded that you know BR I'm just asking you if you wrote it I'm not I'm I'm not here to to critique the uh the contents of the letter I don't think there's a need to send it to a lab or to have it analyzed I'm asking you did you write the letter makes you feel like you want to do something to the guy to make it permanently stop you know deal
with it uh directly in different ways but it it makes it feel pretty disgusting do we have to screen every single piece of mail that you generate does it h does it have to come to that I hope it doesn't it's just it' just be tedious for me you know what I mean I don't feel like checking your mail every single day I have no comment well it's about the end of this come on this individual also uh threw a nice big cup full of human feces on a clergyman as the clergyman was standing by
his cell trying to help him out the inmate proceeded to stab him in his arm and then throw a big fluffer Nutter Container full of human EX all over the clergymen okay we'll deal with it we'll deal with it in fact for that last Escapade with the religious person uh I think that's going to get him some ddu time in the main section of Walpole prison a major disturbance has broken out in one of the cell blocks we are denied permission to film during the incident and are only now allowed briefly to see its aftermath
I'm going to go down with the lieutenant we're going to just make a round in the unit see how things are going take a peek in the cells pull in the doors just to get a general feel for what's going on when you're doing something like that maybe a conour will stop you and they'll they'll let you know what's up give you a little feedback as to what's going on in that unit how'd you end up in this time I seen you come up from breakfast but yeah how do you get caught up in that
stuff this occurred because the inmates that were put in here were previously in a a regular population block they they had yard privileg they had uh chow hall Privileges and I guess it's their way of protesting and being returned to higher custody we'll just go ahead and monitor um we'll monitor for any more ring leaders if the ring leaders have to come out they'll be taken out and be brought to say so we'll uh we'll wait for the word from the top how often does this kind of thing happen not very often anymore not very
often anymore later Lieutenant Robert mcginness shows some of the younger officers a videotape of what Walpole used to be like this was March 6th 1981 it was a very long day it started at U 7:00 in the morning with what we were going to consider routine moves to segregation um of I think five or six inmates I was at cell 15 down the end back then barri and I believe it was an inmate on on the third tier that was refusing to come out you ever seen this tape no I have never seen this tape
yeah they're going in his cell he's fighting he's actually stabbed the captain you can see the blood where were you all this is going on I'm one of those four or so officers that went down there yeah I was at the other end of the tier we'd gone down and what happens at this point is the tack members up in the gallery are introducing gas into the unit at this point we've introduced some officers with shotguns he got a gas gun no shotgun um I just think it was the the strong will of the department
to to run its facilities and not allow inmates to run its facilities and I I think that concept holds true today that you know we run the institutions not the inates you know they always say people in law enforcement have the highest divorce rate and this and that and um it always seems to be that they let let themselves get stressed out you know they take everything in or they you know being around inmates all the time they're not here CU they're the nicest people in uh in society you know and uh prison life in
general is depressing you know yeah how long you in here for prison for 27 years what' you do second degree murder not too long ago there was an mate murdered in here uh as in other places of the prison when you think uh you know it's not a dangerous place because you look around and you see well everyone's working this particular incident happened first thing in the morning uh they arrived to work and uh by the end of the day I mean one was dead so that's the kind of things that transpire right in this
area here one of those things there have been staff members over the years that have turned into alcoholics as a result of this job um we've had people commit suicide in this business and I really think a lot of it is because they don't do something to relieve their stress outside of work what happen if you hear that alarm is always in the back of your head when are going to go off uh what do I do if the alarm goes off what's my job if everybody does their little job then we should be okay
it could be anywhere from a homicide just just uh one inmate yelling at the officer or punching another inmate that the officer felt it the need to freeze the place up stress level is always there yes that's probably why our life expectancy is an average of 55 years today at Walpole State Prison inmate LS Vega is going home in just 30 minutes he will leave solitary confinement in the ddu be given a $50 check and go directly back into society how long has it been Louis how long has it been 5 years some months how's
it feel now feels good you know it's that's how it should feel you know after leaving these walls I think that when an inmate finishes his sentence and commits some sort of heinous crime within a short period of time there's a human and cry that well he never should have been released well he had to have been released he finished his sentence and you know do we rehabilitate people people want to have to change themselves most of the people that we see in our system are just career criminals and doing time is just part of
that business it's a temporary setback I can't say I'm never coming back cuz where I come from you know it ain't all um cookies and milk so and I'm going back home back to the same place I'm not going to deny where I'm from and I ain't going to run from it either man I let me be over they're seeing you and that they're looking at you the way you you know conduct yourself and they may try to emulate that they may try to resent that uh your authority figure now you know believe it or
not you know it's like with anyone you meet or anything you do you you leave something behind no matter where you go or what you do you leave something behind with somebody I believe that you know maybe you can leave a little something good that when they do get back out into society you know maybe maybe you've done a little good it's not too often that you feel like you can you've done some [Applause] good [Applause] I'm not going to stay here till I'm growing old you know what I mean you're surrounded by concrete and
B and all you're hearing all day is slamming doors and metal hitting metal you know I mean they it gets to you you know seen some people retire and two months down the road Dro dead of a heart attack it's it's all thrown away you know and that's not what I want to do your plans when you get out of here in 20 years oh 20 years I couldn't even tell you um I'm hoping I can have my kids in school you know that's pretty much I'm thinking of them instead of me as long as
I'm living and happy I'm all set pretty much see this this is our senority list when you start Mak you make it to the front page it's big of the seniority list right now well Kenny's on the Kenny and Johnny are on the second page and I'm at the well I might have snuck into the SEC second page after that these guys up at the top boy they're sitting pretty yeah we wish we were them they're dead in six months one fo right I wish 30 30 years 27 25 26 25 you know once they
leave you know it's they're all done of course don't ask what that mental capacity is at years because doing to they just want stay so they can show off this stage I'll still be here [Music] train
