♪ [eerie music] ♪ inmate> CCI is a monster or a monastery.

guard> You can work with this institution for years and never be in a use-of-force situation.

Then all of a sudden one day you earn about six or seven months' worth I mean, you can get hurt down there!

♪ inmate> CCI, to me, is a unique city in which we've got just about everything that you would find in a city on the street.

♪ [key chain rattling] John... John... wake up time, wake up.

♪ narrator> Prison does change an inmate.

It will change an officer.

It will change a person.

Some of the inmates that come in... they're hard.

They get harder.

They probably polish their skills in here.

Some...find something different.

(eerie hum) (rap music fades in) ♪ inmate #1> CCI is cruel and unusual punishment.

inmate #2> 90 percent of the population are Black... inmate #1> and gay!

inmate #2> Nasty... inmate #1> Probably one of the nastiest joints in South Carolina!

[chatter and shouting] [shouting] ♪ [eerie music] [echoing] [cell door slamming] [echoing] [traffic sounds] narrator> Central Correctional Institution Columbia, South Carolina.

Driving downtown, it's impossible not to n the state's oldest and most foreboding prison.

Like other prisons around the nation, CCI is a public symbol of humankind's worst element.

It's supposed to be what a civilized society does with the uncivilized.

While criminal activity is ever expanding, so are the nation's prisons.

The walls and fences that keep prisoners in also keep the public out.

Each faceless figure inside costs taxpayers 13 thousand dollars for each year of a sentence.

The numbers are climbing.

For $100 million, the state is building five new prisons.

They, too, will overflow if the current trend continues.

In South Carolina more citizens are imprisoned per capita than in any state in America, which has more of its citizens imprisoned than any country on Earth.

(conversations) inmate> We got it goin' on over there boy.

Come see us... narrator> Viewing CCI's prisoners from a safe distance provides a temporary illusion.

Imprisonment is rarely forever... ninety-nine percent of this population will someday return to society.

How much correction takes place in an individual serving a year or two or ten at an institution like CCI?

If human behavior were predictable, the work of corrections would be precise.

It isn't.

inmate> That tends to make a person think You can't help it.

You feel penned up... You're helpless in here, you know.

You can't do anything for yourself.

You're dependin' on someone to tell you when to eat, when to wash, when to get up, when to go t You know, how to dress, what to say.

And those type of things tend to make you...violent.

You feel rebellious, like you're helpless.

It takes you way back.

It caused me to grow and mature.

I didn't allow the negative stuff to get to me.

The tools that were provided to me to make the necessary changes I needed to make, I took them up and I used 'em.

I did not just let them lay there and look at them and hope they'd do the job for me.

(indiscernible conversations) narrator> Incarceration at CCI produces a different outcome for each inmate.

It is difficult to judge or even begin to make sense of a penal system without the advantage of history.

♪ Unlike today's modern prisons, CCI reflects two centuries of changing penal codes and changing values.

The idea of large-scale imprisonment is rooted in a penal reform movement begun in Europe and built upon by Americans.

Herbert Johnson> One of the things about m narrator> Historian Herbert Johnson.... is that men are very aggressive and assertive.

They tend toward violence.

They have short tempers.

When you see something you want, you go and get it, regardless of who it belongs to.

Sexual activity can trigger all sorts of violence, rape, and various other sexual crimes.

The whole spectrum of man's animal nature comes out as a source of criminal activity.

narrator> Imprisonment as a means of punishment is a relatively new idea.

For hundreds of years, punishment under the law involved monetary restitution and violent payback.

From a modern perspective, it is often difficult to distinguish the civilized from the uncivilized in the historical pursuit of justice.

♪ Herbert> What happens, of course, is that society does establish that criminal justice system, that penal system, and it begins to be used for other purposes.

It begins to be used as a tool for oppressing various classes.

The ruling class oppress the working class and in effect produce a system where it's very repressive socially.

♪ narrator> Life in the antebellum South had at least one thing in common with life elsewhere... people cheated, stole, and became highly aggressive, quite literally at the drop of a hat.

A man of high social standing often took to dueling and other violent means to settle differences.

While he often stood to gain respect for defending his honor, people of lower class clearly stood at a legal disadvantage.

If you were a slave, you had virtually no legal protection.

(men singing mournfully) ♪ Oh, Lord... ♪ narrator> Some plantation masters were perceived as merciful.

Many others punished ritually.

Plantation justice was arbitrary.

(singers) ♪ Go 'head, don't you.... ♪ Callie Elder, dramatized> "There was a gua "where the worst niggers was kept.

"While they was in their guardhouse, they weren't fed but once a day."

narrator> As part of the Federal Writers' Project in 1939, the words of Callie Elder recall the morbid memories of one ex-slave.

Elder> "If one slave kill't another, "Massuh Billy made the overseer "tie that dead nigger to the one what kill't him.

"The killer had to drag the corpse 'round till he died too."

♪ narrator> Punishment under the law was carried out by local sheriffs.

South Carolina's 25 district jails suffered from gross neglect.

Each year grand juries inspected the district jails and made presentments to the state.

speaker, dramatization> "Said jail stands in a very unhealthy situation, "which subj to risk his life with the fever."

speaker, dramatization> "We, the Grand Jury, "do present as a grievance the state of the jail, "which from its small size, "the prisoners therein are not allowed "the privileges and comforts of a civilized country.

"Frequently the unfortunate female is confined "with the male prisoner in the same room, the maniac with the debtor."

narrator> Suspects and witnesses were often locked up alongside convicted felons.

That's because time in jail was less a punishment than it was a holding tank for those awaiting trial.

Convicts were fined, branded, whipped, and pilloried.

As late as 1813, capital punishment was the sentence for 165 different crimes, including picking pockets and witchcraft.

Only the smallest percentage of convicted felons were actually sent to the gallows.

There lacked a range of punishments to fit the crime.

It was not unusual for a person guilty of a minor offense to receive harsh punishments, while merciful juries let a murderer walk free.

♪ A long and complex political struggle led to reform of South Carolina's penal codes and the construction of the penitentiary.

Beginning in 1797, and steadily for the next 70 years, the legislature heard appeals from governors, representatives, intellectuals, and concerned citizens.

Governor Drayton in 1802 in a speech to the Senate said, Drayton, dramatized> "This is an object "worth the consideration... whether a penitentiary house "would not be established in this state "to which, instead of taking away life, "convicts might be condemned to labor for a term of years.

"Public manufactories might hence be established "for rope making, for ironworks, "and for other useful purposes, "while the demand which such establishment would excite would encourage the industry of all the farmers around."

narrator> A year later the new governor, Richardson, echoed these sentiments.

Richardson, dramatized> "I will not presume to say "that for no crime whatever would it be found expedient "to inflict the punishment of death.

"Probably in some few cases it might, "but those ought to be of the most atrocious nature.

"This establishment, however, will be well worth an experiment."

♪ narrator> In other parts of the nation and in Europe, a penal reform movement had already begun.

Thinkers of the enlightenment felt that science and compassion could serve to cure many societal ills, crime being among the worst.

A penitentiary was a place to pay "penance" to God to make up for wrongdoing.

Many individuals supported change not because of any faith in the penitentiary... they were simply repulsed by the gallows.

But opposition was strong.

Southern conservatives warned of problems, pointing fingers at the Northern example.

[horse hooves clopping] Growing urban problems had accelerated the Northern move toward prisons.

When construction of penitentiaries first began in the North around the 1790s, not enough was known about administering them.

By the 1820s, most of the nation's penitentiaries were losing money and experiencing problems.

South Carolina conservatives ridiculed the concept, describing the penitentiary as a college for graduating villains.

A Barnwell jury said, "To be well fed and stored is not a punishment but an inducement to misdemeanor."

♪ When the Civil War ended slavery, it forced South Carolina's system of plantation justice to be replaced.

Trial of African Americans accused of theft and assault would no longer be conducted by the plantation overseer but in the same courts with Whites, with the result that local sheriffs would be unable to house the increased number of prisoners.

Herbert> It's interesting that South Carolina really is last to establish a state prison in the South, and it's really the last to take any kind of steps to reform its penal code.

narrator> Historian Herbert Johnson Herbert> Essentially, one, the state is ve It's always been that way and was even more so in the 19th century.

Secondly, the aristocratic people who ran the state politically and socially in the 19th century felt that it was their duty and their responsibility and in their interest to run the criminal justice system their way and to mete out punishments personally the way they felt they should be punished.

So it wasn't until 1867 that you finally have a prison established in South Carolina.

Even when it's established, essentially that prison has continued to operate under the same sort of political control and auspices that existed prior to its establishment.

♪ narrator> There was much debate on the location of the penitentiary.

Every district competed for control.

The key to eventual location was water.

It was felt the penitentiary should be nearly, if not completely, self-supporting.

The Broad and Congaree Rivers and the recently built Columbia Canal promised abundant water power to drive machinery for prison industries.

These prison industries were the great hope of the reformist and of the pragmatist.

Putting inmates to work provided an answer to the very real question of how the operation of such a large institution could be sustained.

At the same time, new theories in penology stressed rehabilitation of the inmates through a regimen of education, discipline, and training in crafts and skilled trades.

Individuals entering the institution limited to criminal skills could reenter society possessed of legitimate skilled trades and infused with the work ethic.

♪ The work began one mile from the proposed site of the penitentiary, close to an abundant supply of seamless granite.

Unlike the decaying district jails, a tough and weather-resistant granite structure would greatly reduce escapes.

♪ The stone was loaded on railway cars at the quarry one mile up the Broad River.

These were ferried down the Columbia Canal, stopping opposite the construction site of the penitentiary.

South Carolina's first state prison was built mainly by ex-slaves.

The men labored under the watchful eye of guards and were paid 75 cents a day.

In a plea to Governor Orr to commute one man's sentence from death to life in labor, the lawyer wrote, speaker dramatization>"The state would benefit by such action "because Quick is a big, hearty, strong fellow, "suited to carry stone, "and has enough Negro blood in his veins "to make him hearty and durable, and a first-rate hand to assist in building the state prison."

narrator> A long chain was attached to eac twenty at a time.

A 12-pound ball extended from a short chain to the ankle.

There were always at least 100 workers on site.

Plans called for a structure 500 feet long, 55 feet wide, and 45 feet high, with space for 548 cells.

While construction dragged on, a 12-foot wooden fence was erected, and South Carolina was finally on its way to a state-of-the-art prison facility.

♪ On April 18, 1867, two White men, convicted of stealing bacon from a freedman, became the first inmates at the South Carolina Penitentiary.

Soon African Americans were sent as well, and before long, three men crammed into each 6-by-4-foot cell.

Like life outside the institution, life in the penitentiary was segregated.

At a National Prison Association convention, the chairman of the penitentiary board of directors reported, speaker, dramatization> "After the emancipation of the colored people, "whose idea of freedom from bondage "was freedom from work and a license to pillage, means had to be established for their control."

narrator> The men worked together and ate but were required to maintain silence during labor except to ask necessary questions.

The system of discipline used in a prison had more to do with successful operation rather than any enlightened penal theory.

Successful operation also meant making money.

Inmates were involved in making furniture and clothing and in binding books.

(men singing mournfully) ♪ No more, my Lord... ♪ narrator> Under pressure from the state to the prison followed the lead of other Southern states in providing cheap prison labor to private industry.

The Greenwood and Augusta Railroad paid $3.00 a month for each prisoner.

The men were kept in cages where they slept chained to bunks padded by straw crawling with vermin and lice... when the bunks had straw.

Of the railroad's 287 leased convicts, almost half died within the two years of service.

The years of convict leasing in the early 1880s were to be the only years that the penitentiary covered its expenses and turned a profit.

The system came under sharp attack from reform groups and private industry.

Reformers exposed the abuse.

Competitors of those benefiting from the system expressed outrage at good-old-boy politics.

Cheap prison labor afforded to a select few was viewed as unfair competition.

This charge was eventually to tie the hands of prison industries in general.

One of the results of the labor movement of the 1920s was the Hawes-Cooper Act forbidding interstate transportation of prison-made goods.

Even a more serious handicap for the South Carolina Penitentiary was the poor market for goods in the state's weak economy.

♪ The business of running the penitentiary was the dominant force shaping prison life, but the question of punishment remained.

And for some, a symbolic few, the question was not how they should live, but rather, how to die.

Herbert> Of course, hangings were one of t in 19th-century America.

People would come to watch the hanging and bring their picnic lunch and wait to see the drama of an individual die.

The point simply is, people who were sensitive to the overall emotional impact of a hanging came to the conclusion that somehow that brutalized those people who watched the hanging, the execution, and that it should be taken out of the public eye, that, in effect, criminals sometimes were even glorified or made heroes by the actual formality and the celebratory nature of a hanging.

Increasingly in the 1840s and '50s, executions become private rather than public.

narrator> Executions were changing in other ways to keep in step with the times.

In an era of great gadgetry, a new electrical invention was making its way into penitentiaries around the nation.

South Carolina acquired an electric chair in 1912 that adopted the bizarre yet familiar nickname "Old Sparky," and has been used to carry out the death penalty 240 times, generally for rape and murder.

♪ Paul Jeter> I've seen witness to fall out... couldn't stand it.

Particularly, I've seen several women just faint.

Can't stand it!

And some people can see the whole thing and tell you, say, "Hit him again!"

[laughing] Yeah...people do that.

narrator> Paul Jeter... during his 27-year sentence, he assisted in 7 executions.

After the physician pronounced death, Jeter's job was to carry the corpse from the electric chair to the cooling table.

Paul> You can see that blue blaze, and then there was... just watch it, you know.

But, um-- interviewer> Why?

Paul> Well, I didn't wanna see it!

I couldn't see that...I didn't wanna see that, you know.

Really... I didn't wanna see it.

Uh-uh, no.

(silence) (silence) narrator> Jeter's 27 years in the penitentiary were served for housebreaking, his first offense.

He remembers the days when discipline was tougher.

That policy about takin' off your cap... hurtin' men, all Black, and had to take it off.

You couldn't tip it.

You couldn't just tip it like that.

You had to take it off, you know, see.

interviewer> What would happen if you didn't?

He'd knock it off!

They would knock it off!

narrator> The day of his release in 1972, Jeter returned to CCI to work there supervising the wood shop.

He has worked for the Department of Corrections ever since.

The most dramatic period of change for the South Carolina Penitentiary was spurred by this man, Ellis MacDougall.

Ellis MacDougall> How are you?

Clerk> Fine.

Ellis> The counts right.

Ellis> Counts right.

I came here as deputy warden in 1958, and, of course, conditions in this institution in those days were just awful.

This institution had 1,800 inmates.

We had 625 in Cellblock One.

We had a steel center section in Cellblock One, and we would keep the new inmates on one tier there.

If we got a rash of inmates, we'd have four and five in a cell.

They'd almost have to take turns sleeping.

We had 23 officers for all of that.

We had open gambling on the yard was the only recreation.

There was no school.

There was a part-time doctor.

It was totally segregated.

There was absolutely nothing to do except work and play cards.

>> The thing that worries us about it is, we know from research that the younger they start in crime, the longer they stay in it.

And... narrator> This archival film was produced by WIS television in Columbia when it named MacDougall the 1967 Man of the Year.

Reporter> How about the changes that have taken place since you've come down here at the institution?

Ellis> I remember the first night at midnight I came to the change of shift and at midnight, July 1st, I became director.

My first call was to the Wateree Farm to take the chains and stripes off all inmates.

I just didn't think that was acceptable in the days of 1962, and slowly but surely started to make changes.

Got the cash money away from the inmates because I knew if I could get the cash money that would end the gambling.

If they didn't have cash money, it would reduce a tremendous amount... the amount of drugs coming in, the fraud going on between inmates and officers.

[office machinery noises] We got a federal grant to build a vocational center here, started teaching vocations.

We brought in a full-time recreation director.

We really got some sports going for all ages.

We hired a education director and really, seriously took the building behind us and started working on responsible education programs for adults.

student> I think it'd be 49.

Huh?

Forty-seven?

narrator> The CCI, MacDougall returns to today recalls a few familiar faces.

Frankie Sun, the Japanese Santa Claus who began teaching CCI inmates 27 years ago, is still working as CCI's librarian.

He has since managed to convert this corner of the prison, the library, into an oasis.

[bells jingling] To MacDougall, these 27 years say less about a changing CCI than about the unchanging world outside.

Ellis> The thing that dramatically affects as it did today, is that none of the people here, or all of the people here with a few exceptions, maybe a dozen, were not even born when I was the commissioner.

The real question our society has to answer itself is, what is it that we do wrong that every year we produce a new group of violent criminals?

And what can we do to stop that?

(horn squeaking, various conversations) narrator> During his walk-through of CCI, MacDougall encounters yet another familiar face.

You guys still here?

narrator> This time it's not a CCI employee.

Ellis> You mean you came back?

<Yeah> I didn't rehabilitate you?

inmate> We tried.

narrator> They symbolic name change from "Penitentiary" to "Central Correctional Institution," enacted by MacDougall, accompanied far-reaching reform in the final quarter century of CCI's history.

The problems which remain are the result of a complex combination of things.

To this day the courts remain highly class conscious.

CCI can't help but live up to its reputation as the bottom of the barrel of South Carolina's criminal justice system.

While the prison reform legislation of the '70s poured millions into developing rehabilitation at CCI, these same laws protect inmates from being forced to work, to receive education, to take advantage of any programs whatever.

While the public rallies behind politicians who promise to get tough on crime, the resulting policies at CCI often spell problems, problems which eventually return to the street.

>> If a man ain't got nothin' to do, he lay around in his cell all day, loafin' There's no where to go around here.

If he ain't got a job, then he's bored.

Therefore, that's gonna get him in trouble... You think about taking a little pill, drin A man mop the floor five minutes in the morning Stuff like that there, wash the shower down, take him 15 minutes.

He got the rest of the day for his self.

We wanna work.

We like being out on the side of the road doing somethin' to occupy our time.

Ain't no way I can work as hard as I did when I come here.

They put me out there, doing a job I did roofing work Ain't no way I can make it eight hours rig 'cause I done got back and got fat, lazy.

So I'll admit, I'm goin' back back out there, I'm looking for somethin' easy to do.

narrator> Their basic needs provided for, some inmates choose not to work.

The inmates at CCI who want to work charge the institution doesn't provide enough jobs.

Without the opportunity to earn work credits, the incentive to work toward early release is lost, and CCI moves one critical step further from its original concept as a public manufactory, a place to socialize criminals through work.

inmate> Hey, y'all got anything on witchcraft, man?

Got any witchcraft?

narrator> Perhaps the most vexing problem facing CCI, facing any prison, is dealing with the psychological and sociological variables of its inmate population.

Stepping inside, an outsider becomes instantly aware of how difficult it must be to correct human behavior, individually and on a large scale.

The complexities of prisoners, of prison life, are perhaps best understood by coming face-to-face with some of the inmates themselves and with the people charged with their custody.

Meet Joe McCown.

Joe McCown> When I walked in here 17 years everybody probably heard the noise of my a____ tightenin' up.

(laughing) They just didn't know what the sound was, and for the next six weeks, six months, I walked around with my back literally to the wall!

When I'd walk down the tunnel, I'd be walkin' sideways.

(inmate grunting) correctional officer> One of the first things I experienced was down in the mess hall, and I seen a stabbin'.

An inmate actually got stabbed to death over a piece of chicken, which seems very irrelevant and minute to somebody out on the street, but in here the rules is totally different.

Joe McCown> I really think that for the most part you have to go look for trouble.

It's not the trouble comes to look for you.

If there's a riot, sure... everybody's in trouble.

If you don't do drugs, if you're not out there robbin', stealin', gamblin', doin' all those things, you're not gonna necessarily have problems back here.

I thought convicts were these big, bad monsters that made King Kong look like a wimp.

Then I realized that most... you wouldn't know that a man's a convict if you saw him on the streets unless he had a sign stenciled across his back.

The basic difference is that the people in here, for whatever reason, have overcome a barrier, you know, between what's acceptable and what's not acceptable... (silence) ...whether that's pickpocket or murder.

You've got to cross the barrier that you obey the law... you break the law.

The racial ratio at CCI and corrections in this part of the country, a good deal of it has to do with economics.

Blacks are disproportionately poorer than Whites.

Poor people are more likely to commit crime.

They're less likely to have a lawyer that's gonna get 'em out.

They're less likely to have a judge or jury that's gonna be sympathetic to 'em.

Really, you could extend that even further to education.

They're less likely to have a good education.

That would even go to the jobs that they would be able to get, to hold.

An armed robber or a thief or that... you know, they have economic reasons.

They may not be valid, but there are economic reasons involved.

narrator> Paul Ulmer's job at CCI is running the schoolhouse.

Paul Ulmer> I feel that we not only teach materials or knowledge from books, but we also teach survival skills to individuals... how to interact, interpersonal relationships.

In some cases, the individuals have not been able to cope with the stress.

Control-- self-control-- is necessary for 'em to survive on the street.

Once they get that straight, you and I probably need to talk more about.... Whenever you realize that these people that are at CCI are from 22 to 65 or 70, that some of them have been incarcerated from the time they were 6, 7, or 8 years old, it's difficult for these individuals to know just how to deal with freedom.

They've been accustomed to a structured type of life to where they are told when to get up, when to go to bed, when to go to work, when to go to school, when to participate in some group, when to go to eat.

We take these freedoms for granted.

The fellows that are incarcerated at CCI can deal with, uh... truthfulness.

inmate> That's when I met you, fat buddy.

Paul> See there... messed the hair up.

inmate> Basically Mr.

Ulmer, he's the type of guy... if you come to him with a problem, he will not hesitate under any circumstance to help you.

We respect him because he respects us, and that's a big thing within a prison setting.

narrator> Prison life changes not only inmates, but also the people who work there.

This is Ulmer's fifteenth year at CCI.

Paul> It's taught me that we all make mistakes.

It's only by the good grace of God that I'm not incarcerated at CCI.

I made mistakes.

I made some mistakes that have been... probably... well, I wouldn't say that they're mistakes that are as serious as some of the mistakes the individuals have made that are incarcerated here.

But I've seen some very petty things, also, that I felt like could have been corrected some other way, other than through incarceration.

This is that other thing that I had to do.

narrator> Donald Hollabaugh, shown here working with Ulmer, performed most responsibly as head clerk.

Less than a week after this videotaping, everything changed.

>> About 7 pages... only 20 to go.

"South Carolina prison officials still looking for two men "who broke out of Columbia's Central Correctional Institution last night... Officials are looking for the escapee, he' Donald Hallock, serving a sentence "for assault and battery with intent to kill, "and 36-year-old Donald Lee Hollabaugh, serving a life term for kidnapping."

narrator> Hit by the news of Hollabaugh's escape, Ulmer responds that he would think twice about hiring him again if Hollabaugh returned to CCI.

interviewer> Is that to do with not wanting to help him because he doesn't deserve help or because you felt he can't be trusted?

There's a difference there.

Isn't there?

Paul> I think that my role as a school administrator in prisons is to help everyone that really wants and needs help.

I don't think it's my place to evaluate whether they... deserve help or not.

narrator> While it is clear that inmates often need help, that is not to say that help is always wanted.

While some motivate themselves to work within the system, others rage against it.

>> CCI to me, I feel like it's a plantation.

>> CCI is a hate factory.

>> To me it's one big concentration camp.

>> CCI stands for... Central "Corruptional" Institution.

>> CCI's a place to house Black folks, keep us back here.

>> They need to tear this ragged down.

They need to do something.

We doin' time, but need to treat us, they treat us like dogs.

We human beings like everybody else.

inmate> They're corrupt... This whole system is corrupt!

narrator> Perhaps no other part of CCI houses more rage than Cellblock Two.

This is a prison within prison.

Sergeant Brooks> CB2 is, is... to me is one of the hardest place there is to work.

You have a whole different kind of population in here.

We get all kinds of people in here.

We get substantial security risk inmates.

We get inmates that come here that don't want to cooperate with you at all.

All they wanna do is just sit back and think about things that they can raise hell with.

Flooding cells, tearing the sink off the wall, settin' fires in the cell, bammin' on the cell door every minute of the day.

Real little things... like if we don't have enough Kool-Aid to go around.

they start raisin' hell about the Kool-Aid.

"We don't have enough Kool-aid", then we h You know, it's real simple to get Kool-aid All you have to...we go to mess hall, get But if we tell them that we're gonna get some more, then they raise hell about that, until we get the Kool-aid back in the unit.

inmate #1> That one right there.

That's the one y'all need to talk to.

They took a tray, man, a month ago and hit him in the eye.

They took a food tray and hit him upside the head... and knocked him down the steps.

That's all real, yo.

Had stitches all on his eye.

inmate #2> They beat us every day!

inmate #1> See, don't nobody hear 'bout that right there.

They don't tell nothin' 'bout that.

inmate #3> I had got 40 something stitches You got officers gettin' mad at inmates in here and they throw they mail in the trash can.

They come from the streets.

You know what I'm saying It's what you call a bullpen right here, if you act up.

inmate #1> This where they come to beat us at.

inmate #3> No.

They don't even do that.

Don't even put that out in the streets.

Sergeant Brooks> That's what the public sees us, we beating on the inmates We don't have to do that.

I can get any inmate to do anything I want him to do, because I know how to approach him and how to talk to him.

That's the way we train these officers in here.

We could put you in a security cell.

If you was on C-tier in front of the TV, we would just put you back on B-tier.

That's where all the security cells are, and in there you might not be able to see TV that good.

That's one punishment.

Then, you say to yourself, "Man, I sure miss my cell.

"I'm gonna straighten out so I can go back to my regular cell, so I don't have to stay in here.

correctional officer> Don't flood this cell.

inmate> I ain't going to do that.

correctional officer> Don't tear this cell up now.

inmate> I ain't gonna do that.

I done got myself straight.

I don't wanna go back where y'all move me.

It ain't no fun over there.

It ain't no fun over here.

officer> You got to stay someplace in the Sgt.

Brooks> Right now the public sees that we're... back in the old days they saw real big officers walk around with shotguns, sittin' on the side of the road, lookin' at 'em.

They were callin' us "guards."

Now we're "correction officers," because an officer has to go to the academy.

He has to learn how to do reports, how to fire a weapon.

He has to run a certain time for a mile and a half here.

We do everything police officers do.

The only thing we don't do is ride around in cars with pistols and arrest people.

Corey Funches> Sergeant Brooks, he's new.

I haven't had any problems with him, but he's one of the few I perceive as bein' a eight-hour worker.

He comes in and goes out.

I have nothin' against him.

narrator> Corey Funches, along with some 50 other inmates in Cellblock Two, is here for more than eight hours a day.

He's locked up for 23 hours and is allowed only 1 hour out for showers and recreation.

The relationship between correctional officer and inmate is placed under terrific stress.

While Funches respects Sergeant Brooks, this is the exception.

Corey> Like I told you, Pigs, I don't like pigs.

I don't associate with them.

You can't be my friend and my oppressor too.

They are the custodians here.

How can I be friends with a man that turned the key on the door on me every day?

If I was working here, I'd be fired and incarcerated in one day, because I'd let everybody go.

inmate> I hope I get a letter from Old Mike today, man.

Corey> I'm here at CCI for the same reason I'm here in CB2...disciplinary reasons.

I was charged for assault and battery on a deputy warden at Broad River Correctional Institution.

for that disciplinarian action, they sent me to what they call a maximum-security prison, placed me on M-custody, and here I am at CB2 in CCI.

I've never been fortunate enough to go out in population here.

I've been locked up for a year now.

inmate> Aye, man about three rats came and jumped my barrier last night.

One jumped on my bed... I kicked him.

He fell on the wall opposite the bed.

Corey> They say we're dangerous, maximum security, a threat.

Would you consider George Bush a violent man because he orders 200 thousand civilians in Iraq to be killed?

Violence is violence.

I mean, so what.

You got people here who killed one or two people.

I didn't kill anybody... I assaulted someone.

But that doesn't make me any violent than the mass murderers than our government is.

White criminals, they commit crimes that people like us only dream about committin'.

I'll say this to the high-class, White criminal-- I'm talking to the governors, the senators, all these people like that, the lawmakers-- first of all, to understand a people you have to understand where they're come from.

We were brought here some 400 years ago.

We were stripped of our culture, We were stripped of our language, We were stripped of our religion.

We had to come over here.

Our first generation was denied education.

They were treated like animals.

Therefore, you can't expect us to be as good at this thing as White people are.

White people, this is y'all culture, y'all language, y'all education... y'all understand this.

These laws are for y'all.

narrator> That inmates like Funches feel contempt for the establishment may help explain the lawlessness of some, but this man's rebellion exploded close to home.

Corey> I could talk to you to an extent.

Okay, what it involved in, it was a deputy warden.

She was African American and it was a woman, but, at our institution she wasn't considered the type of African American that was for the Black people.

Like I said before, every brother is not a brother just because of his color... he might as well be undercover.

A lot of Black people get caught up in that thing as if "I work with the White man... I'm better than them... "because I got power."

Same thing back when Chicken George, and K you got some slaves snitch and beat, and s So I feel that she was the type of slave that was workin' for the White man.

She wasn't for me at all.

I was involved in was an incident where a cup of urine and feces was thrown into her face.

I never admitted doin' such a thing and I won't admit it now, but that's what I was charged for.

Sgt.

Brooks> He's retaliating because he's He went through the system... he broke the crime, went to court, came to jail.

When you put this badge on, they lookin' at the badge.

He's lookin' at the badge.

He's not lookin' at the person behind the badge.

He sees a lot of Black officers workin' back here.

And all of a sudden, just because he's Black, we're supposed to take his side.

It doesn't work like that.

We have a job to do.

Corey> Okay, yeah, I took part in it, but I didn't do the actual throwin'.

interviewer> Do you agree with being a part of it?

Corey> Do I agree with it?

I'll put it to you this way.

You can't keep slingin' crap in people's face all your life and not expect for crap to be slung back in yours.

It's kind of like fightin' back.

narrator> Much of crime is committed by young men.

It is commonly believed that when the rage of hormones settle, most people self-correct.

When an inmate demonstrates the wisdom of years down inside CCI, his status is elevated.

He earns the respected title of "convict."

The wisdom of 12 years to his name, Arthur Cassata is still unsure what all this will mean for him in 1996, the year of his earliest possible parole.

Arthur Cassata> The prison system is funny.

It could help you, and it could kill you.

The way it could kill you, if you buck against it and fight against it, you'll never see light again.

But if you use the system for your benefit by education, college, a training program, by doing what you're supposed to, and just keep on doing until they finally say, "This man, he rehabilitated himself."

That's the only way a person really changes...by himself.

How much time do someone's got to do to learn the lesson?

How much time does society got to give a person to learn the lesson for burglary?

Give 10 years...don't they know what they're to the people in here?

They're programming 'em to be prisoners... They're programming them not to make it in the streets no more.

[reading quietly] Arthur> I'm originally from California.

That's where I was raised.

My environment there was a poor environment around where we used to live.

We did what we could to survive.

"Be kind, one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another.

I started from the age of 11, 12, I started running around gang members and going out, stealin' Coke bottles or whatever I could to bring some money home for myself to spend like that.

There were sometimes when I would have to make a sacrifice and my brothers would have to make a sacrifice to provide for my sister.

Well, really, it was like adrenaline, to see if I could get away with it.

It was exciting goin' in peoples' houses.

Sometimes the people would be in the house, and I would just see if I could get away with it.

Sometimes they would wake up, and I would have to go out the door.

There was times when I did it for... like when I hit the age of 18, 19, I started usin' hard narcotics, Class A narcotics, morphine.

I started usin' heroine, and I had to provide my habit.

All right.

That was a good workout.

I don't blame my parents for not giving me love.

They gave me plenty of it.

I was just too stubborn-headed.

I wanted to be one of those vato locos... those crazy guys that walk down the street That was my decision I made.

When I go here, I was passin' through South Carolina, really just to check out the place.

I wasn't planning to stay, but I got involved in a murder.

When I say a murder, I committed the murder.

I killed the person, and I regret it.

It hurts me inside.

I can't stand and dwell on that.

I got to keep goin'.

As for the time they give me here, which is a life sentence, that has affected me not only physically but also spiritually and mentally.

As for my vision... the holy word says It says, without a vision people perish.

Brother, I still got a vision, but see, that vision... sometimes it tries to fade out It faded out, by seein' myself, instead of going out on goin' to another prison, being transferred to another prison.

[footfalls] Three weeks ago they took me to court.

They took me to court, and I hadn't been out for a while.

Just to look at buildings, to look at... to get off and walk around on the sidewalk, to walk into the court, or walk by a bench in the park and sit down.

It was the most exciting time of my whole life because... even though I was chained up and had shackles on my feet, I felt that I was free.

Everything was so beautiful, so peaceful.

What hurt most was when they brought me back to CCI.

I come in here and have to get used to this stinky system again.

It's just the environment here.

It left me in a daze for about two days.

Joe> CCI is not a correction.

It's not rehabilitation.

It's not punishment.

It's just a warehouse... a place to dump us for a certain amount of time so we can't hurt people on the street.

Well, my crime is not the run-of-the-mill crime, any type of sexual crime... you throw economics and all that, education, background, out the window.

Pick you up a 30-year sentence for rape.

That's the first time I was ever in trouble with the law.

(silence) I built 8 and a half years and made parole, first go-around, went home.

Less than a year later, I picked up 30 years down in Georgia for essentially attempting the same thing.

♪ It's helped society.

I haven't been out there repeating the crime.

narrator> When McCown finally leaves CCI, which could be as early as next year, the question will not be whether society benefited during his imprisonment, but what good it did him.

Joe> It hadn't helped or hindered... I think because I haven't let it help or hinder me.

I've spent most of the 18 years tryin' to ignore the fact that I'm doin' time.

That's the simplest way to do time.

It's the easiest and the fastest way.

If you can switch your mind off, whether it's through books, through TV... work.

The main thing about being in prison is being bored.

(silence) narrator> Corey Funches was recently turned down for parole, but he's not terribly concerned.

He will go home anyhow in a few months when his maximum sentence is served.

Corey> I wanna get back into my occupational trade.

which was, an electrician.

I was an electrician.

before I came here.

I want to settle down.

I don't wanna be too involved with materialistic things.

Like getting a brand new car right off the back.

I wanna get a nice place to stay, hold down a nine-to-five.

You know, just do things until things kick off.

If nothin' kicks off in the street like a revolution, Hey, then I'm not worrying about it.

I'm gonna be an upstandin', law-abidin' citizen, you know.

narrator> Soon everyone will leave CCI.

Its inmates, correctional officers, and staff are being transferred.

The entire complex is to be demolished sometime next year.

Many people are anxious to put it all behind them.

An entire era in South Carolina's prison history is coming to a close.

What will the next era bring?

A new Central Correctional Institution is going up in nearby Lee County.

The expansion of modern prison facilities around the state sees no apparent end.

(silence) It's almost midnight on New Year's Eve, a time to reevaluate the past and think about the future.

All of CCI's inmates have been locked down for the evening, but that never stops a little celebration.

inmate> Three, two, one... Happy New Year!

[cheering] inmate> One more year... this my last year!

narrator> "One more year," a faceless inmate shouts at the world.

And then what will happen, he may wonder.

And he is not alone.

(eerie groans) (footsteps) (eerie groans) (footsteps) [eerie sounds echoing] [eerie sounds echoing] [eerie sounds echoing] (silence) The preceding program is made possible in part