he says it is time for americans to rethink prison from simply punishment to rehabilitation. you say it is about rehabilitation, but a lot of americans think it should be punishment. this should be hell. sure, but we could make somebody worse. but as i m about to hear, plenty of the incarcerated do believe it s just about punishment. another day in the field. then own it support your immune system with a potent blend of nutrients and emerge your best every day with emergen-c chevy silverado factory-lifted trucks. where will they take you? (dog barks)
could go home. yeah. i got life. i m gonna keep my mind on it until i get out. i want to get out alive. clifford hamptons hope remains alive. he is about to face the parole board himself. i m realizing he has been in prison longer than i ve been alive. that s i can t even wrap my head around it. it was a unanimous vote. parole granted. i was there moments after a surprisingly subdued hampton learned the news. so, now a new adventure begins? yeah. life on the outside. yeah. can you imagine what that might be like? it will be pretty exciting. a few days later, hampton walked free for the first time in 61 years. we ll stop and drop your stuff off at your apartment
do time and die in prison. since coming to angola back in 2004, he says he s turned his life around by taking advantage of the prison s programs. i graduated with a b.a. i was selected to be a social mentor. at the prison, he earned a masters degree from a bible college. he even became an ordained minister. a couple of times a week, he gospel raps his former preaching to the population. it s hard to square the man sitting across from me with the horrible crime that he committed. your actions caused the death of a baby. yeah. when he was 21, he was watching his stepson. he says the child was inconsolable. he shook the baby so violently he died. now, he s serving a 60-year sentence for manslaughter. how do you move past that?
working the field, growing vegetables, it is something given back to the prison itself. smith tells me the crops not only provide the inmate population fresh food, but he says it also saves taxpayers money. it costs $1. 70 a day to feed each offender. this will be the life for many of these men for decades to come. and some have left young children behind who are among the five million kids in america who have had a parent in prison. javonte has two of them. you know the way it works sometimes is you re in prison because your daddy was in prison, and your kid will be in prison. are you afraid for your children? yeah, i definitely am. i mean, when i grew up, i didn t know my father. my father got murdered when i was three years old. i never knew him. it s hard to imagine knowing that you will be spending the rest of your life here, especially if you re convicted as a teenager. advocates like brian stevenson say juvenile
meet, a parole board s answer could mean the difference between a second chance at life, or growing old and dying behind bars. back to lester holt with life inside. in my three days at angola, most of the men i spoke with had committed violent crimes and received long sentences. life without parole? yeah. but like every prison, there are also nonviolent offenders serving long sentences that might as well be life. john estein is one of them. i grew up in a middle class neighborhood. went to catholic schools. estein is a gulf war vet who says he was lost and broken when he came home. well, i had no direction in life. in 2000, he was found guilty of running a massive drug ring that moved kilos of cocaine between texas and louisiana. it was his second drug conviction.