progresso. you gotta taste this soup. [ male announcer ] zeebox is the free app that makes watching tv even better. if your tv were a slow running teenager, zeebox would be a horror movie monster. together they d create heart-pounding magic. ahhhhhhhh, i fell over. grooaaaaaarrrr! [ screams ] .that would forever bring couples closer on couches. download zeebox free, and go. grooaaaaaarrrr! .when you watch tv. california state prison corcoran has one of the largest populations of dangerous gang members of any prison on the west coast. our crews have visited here several times and correctional staff is always blunt about the danger. when talking to the cos at corcoran, they told me, you come in here, you have to join a gang for protection. immediately. when you come to the prison, you have to join a gang. you have no choice. it s a must.
atmosphere and i was all for it. let s go, strapped on the boots and let s go. so three months after coming to pelican bay, i was assigned squad leader because squad leader is i m in charge of educating other people on the bombs, the format, how to make knives, how to stab people, where to stab people, what would be the best times, exercising and making sure everybody s following the guidelines of our gang. right? i almost felt like it must have been what it was like 10,000 years ago when you have this almost tribalism. and you have to rely on your clan for protection. people would get stabbed because the mentality that we had out here and the way we train people within our own gang is the only time you should be fighting using your fist is to defend yourself. when we re attacking somebody, you re going to come at them with a knife, period. because, you know, it s better to do something right the first time than having to go back and do it a second time. this here is a sampling o
yeah. then nearly two minutes pass, with nothing happening. our camera operator walked in between exercise cages waiting for the session to begin. finally our crew was informed it wouldn t start until they left. when our crew went back indoors, they learned that kern valley s dominant hispanic gang controlled the exercise session. because all their practices are shrouded in secrecy, they would not work out in front of our cameras. but they can t avoid prison surveillance cameras. notice right now you have what they call a cadence calling which is an exercise routine. there s a certain group of inmates that initiate it. and, therefore, the race have to follow as long as they show respect. everything in prison is about respect. we found another example of an inmate bridging the racial
being put away from the rest of the prison population. you give them information on the organization and other individuals who were involved. the thing is they re trying to build up credibility with you. are you being honest with us? are you trying to be a sleeper who can stab one of these people who disassociated edd themselves from one of these gangs? for a gang member, it s probably one of the toughest decisions they ll ever make in their life. it s easy to get into the gang and start doing stuff with the gang, but to step away from it the other gang members considering them a rat or no good. it s a tough decision for them. if they have family members involved, that puts their family members in jeopardy. safety. the big issues that i wrestled with was, am i going to get killed by dropping out? is my family going to get killed by dropping out? defecting from the gangs. that was my big issue but then i started realizing, am i going to
pelican bay is the toughest prison in the california prison system. it s where the worst of the worst go to. the first time we sent a lockup crew was weeks after they suffered their worst gang riot in history. and there was still tension in the air as the crew walked in through those gates. the riot fought primarily between black and hispanic inmates lasted a little over 30 minutes. one inmate was killed and dozens of others were stabbed or beaten. when we returned five years later, the tension was still palpable. one of the interesting things about pelican bay is there really seemed to be two systems of rules, the prison administration and then the rules of the gangs. and there s this constant tension between the two. it s like a modern day sparta. they have trained themselves mentally, physically for a wartime situation. and it feels like a war. it feels like a wartime prison, pelican bay. correctional staff told us