Results tagged “Lockdown”

Over the past three years National Geographic Channel has gone inside some of America's toughest prisons. From profiling gang-life to what it is like for women who are locked up, Lockdown has been the leader of showing what real life is like on the inside. Sunday's premiere of Lockdown: County Jails is another chapter in the story of the United States' prison system.

Throughout this series we have heard your opinions, listened to your stories, and watched the debate of this very controversial sub-culture of our society. Below are responses from viewers from all walks of life reacting to the show. The channel appreciates the dialogue and hopes for it to continue. Comment here or e-mail us your thoughts directly at comments@Natgeochannel.com with Lockdown Reaction in the subject line.

Greetings to everyone. I was delighted to see these Officers doing the job of law enforcement that most people don't get to see. Why? Because these things take place behind the walls. I was as a Correction Officer in New York City and worked on Riker's Island. I am retired due to a line of duty injury. Only the family of this officers have any idea of the stress that they endure on a daily basis. For the most part they don't talk about it. So please give thanks to these brave officers for the guts they have to deal with these inmates. They deal with the worst of our society. They see and experience things most of the people on the outside do not see and deal with. - C/O Rodriguez

I enjoy the show; it gives the public an idea of how life is in prison. I had the misfortune of doing time in a men's prison for a drug violation. First off, the few luxuries you see inmates with they bought themselves. All the State gives you is clothes, 3 [pots] and a cot. Every thing else is purchased thru commissary. Even the T.V. they watch. A heavy price is paid in day after day of the same poor food quality. Constant boredom. Huge over crowding, bad smells. Indifferent staff, it is an all around nightmare if you are caught up in it. My biggest beef was the over crowding, three men to a cell that in the past 1 man would groan about. So don't be thinking it's a tip toe in the tulips... The US has the most people in prison in the harshest of conditions of any where in the world. Other countries still treat there prisoners with dignity. Here you are just a number, no rehabilitation; just warehouse them in the US. - Jeff

Greg Chapman - Research

With the premiere of Lockdown: Prison Nation airing on Sunday, (Yes I am excited too!), I asked the producers of Lockdown to come together and send me some of the most outrageous facts from Sundays show and some that you all might have missed during two of our more recent episodes. These are the straight facts folks. I was a bit stunned once I hit the bottom of the list....

Lockdown: Prison Nation -

The U.S. has five percent of the world's population, it has 25% of the world's inmates.

California operates the third largest penal system in the world, right after China and the United States.

80,000 inmates are kept in isolation nationwide. - A rising suicide rate is linked to the increasing use of solitary confinement. Nearly 70 percent of inmate suicides are in isolation.

25% of all state prison beds are occupied by the mentally ill. Tops in Los Angeles county jail, followed by New York's Rikers Island.

700,000 inmates are released from prison each year - more than two-thirds of them end up back behind bars within three years.

Assaults on inmates have risen 65% in the past decade.

Kathryn Wallace - Associate Producer

The scene is straight out of Cool Hand Luke; inmates dressed in black and white striped jumpsuits, chained together at the ankle, breaking rock on the side of the road in the unforgiving desert sun. But this is no movie - this is modern life in Phoenix, Arizona. The chain gangers - mostly in the clink for misdemeanor charges - are serving time in Sheriff Joe Arpaio's one-of-a-kind Maricopa County jail.

They don't call him the toughest Sheriff in the West for nothing. His Tent City (boasting a tall neon "VACANCY" sign) is part PR-stunt, part tough-nosed penal colony - and my worst nightmare. Inmates sleep in military group tents, about a dozen double bunks to a tent, fully exposed to everything the desert can throw at you. Temperatures topping 120 degrees Fahrenheit in the summer, contrasted by freezing winter nights, dust storms, scorpions, and on top of that - hundreds of other inmates in a small fenced in space, without bars or safe harbor.

There is no personal space and there are no luxuries. No girlie magazines, no TV, no cigarettes, and a small humiliation included in your county-issued clothing: along with the aforementioned black and white jumpsuit comes pink underwear.

Kathryn Wallace - Associate Producer

The words "Maximum-security prison" and "Utah" aren't exactly a natural fit. Before my visit to Utah State Prison, I wondered if the state - whose most famous exports included the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and Donny and Marie Osmond - had enough criminals to fill their sprawling 700-acre facility. It turns out yes - Utah has law-breakers of all stripes - more than 4,000 men and women - locked up at Utah State Prison. And a bigger surprise: almost half of these inmates have gang ties.

From my vantage point, Utah didn't look urban to me. So where are gangs springing up without the urban feeding grounds for gangs and crime? Officers and inmates told me that the most violent gangs on the street and in the prison are actually imports from California or Mexico - dangerous crime syndicates like the "Surenos" and "Nortenos." The bloodiest feuds are turf battles between the newcomers and the older gangs in the handful of larger cities like Salt Lake City and Ogden.

But then a good portion of the prison's gang inmates are from the almost mythically small Utah desert or mountain towns with names like Kanab and Bountiful - cities with little to offer and lots of wide-open space to get in trouble. You get the feeling from talking to inmates from these small towns that they are getting their script on how to act straight from the movies. At first, I had a hard time taking these gangs seriously. But as small-timing as I thought some of the desert gangsters are, officers warn me that these inmates are actually some of the most volatile and dangerous behind bars; to them, prison is the "Big Dance" - an audition in front of real gangsters for a bigger part.

Greg Chapman - Research

I had the chance to sit down with Gail Mitchell, a producer for the Lockdown series, and ask here a couple of questions about her experiences filming inside of America's prisons. Here is what she had to say.

Greg: What was the most interesting experience that you had while filming an episode for Lockdown?

Gail: The most interesting experience was when a female inmate at Valley State Prison for Women asked me if I was a new inmate. Apparently I fit right in at California's maximum security prison for women.

Greg: Once you enter the prison where you are filming, what are the inmates' reactions towards you and the NG film crew? Welcoming? Hostile? Neutral?

Gail: Well, our NG film crew discovered that no one can just walk into prison. Each crew member had to have passed a complete background check, present ID, go through a metal detector, and then sift through each piece of film gear. This could take about an hour on the average shooting day. And the inmates in California male prisons are divided by their threat level. So inmates weren't wandering around the prison grounds once we entered the gates... they are contained in housing units and yards that were beyond another security check point. Generally inmates were very welcoming and love National Geographic. It was common to hear inmates yelling, "I love Jacques Cousteau!"

Kathryn Wallace - Special Contributor

Before walking into Salinas Valley State Prison, a maximum-security men's prison in California, my only perception of prison came directly from the movies. I envisioned my first day being something like the intake day in the prison classic, Shawshank Redemption, with cruel officers on watch and fearsome inmates hurling insults and trash at the crew and me. Entering the sally port for the first time - the double set of security gates that separate the free world from the world behind bars - I felt a sickening thud in the pit in my stomach when the second set of gates shut behind me, locking me in prison.

The reality, of course, is nothing like the movies. The correctional officers are some of the most decent people I've met, tasked with the impossible: feed, clothe, protect and rehabilitate a volatile population that could be making nice with you one second and swinging a homemade weapon at you the next. And the inmates? Well, it wasn't quite the catcalling festival I'd been warned about. First stop on our tour of the prison was a dorm-like housing unit with 120 inmates. The inmates were on their bunks with eyes glued to a small television set propped up against the wall, and didn't cast so much as a glance our way. The movie? The Longest Yard - the prison football remake with Adam Sandler. It was possibly the most surreal moment of my life.

Gail Mitchell - Special Contributor

Telling friends or family I just spent two months in a California maximum-security prison elicits a priceless reaction. When the initial shock fades, the questions spill out... Did you sleep there? Did you feel safe? What are the inmates like? What are the inmates in for? The list goes on...

To be honest, getting to know Valley State Prison for Women's staff and inmates was more normal than I had anticipated. The catch phrase amongst inmates is that prison is a "world within a world." This could not be more accurate. When an environment becomes your world, then that is what is normal.

When I first walked into this world, it looked like a typical maximum-security prison to me. Several rows of electrical fencing circled the complex. Touch the fence, and face electrocution. Keeping watch over everyone was a gunner in the tower, and he is armed with live ammunition. As far as I know, the gunner hasn't fired any fatal shots yet. A good thing, considering his training is to shoot to kill.