staff releasing gate three and gate two at this time. clear. when jones finally exited the prison s main gate, our camera teams met up and we said good-bye to jones and his family. see you later! but it wouldn t be the last we saw of him. we asked jones if we could follow up with him after he was settled back home. five days after his release, he was appreciating even the smallest perks of freedom. you don t have to sit there and ask to get your door rolled. you can walk in and out any time you want. you don t have to ask to go get something. i m finally free, and it s amazing. we also met his father, william jones sr., who had turned him in to authorities after he burglarized his home. we had a lot of problems with him as a child.
hey, good morning. jones first run-in with the law came at age 9, when he was found guilty of stealing mail and committing arson. he had set fire to an abandoned semi truck in his neighborhood. friends were just talking me into it. i was like, all right. took lighter fluid and threw it in the back and set it on fire. that was the first one. it just kept going from there. i got criminal mischief for taking my dad s heart pills and putting them in little apples and throwing them over the fence to animals and stuff. i was just i was bad. jones says he began using drugs at age 11 and was soon selling them and stealing to support his habit. at 15 he was put on probation after assaulting the manager of the fast food restaurant where he worked. then at age 18, three years before we met him, jones was convicted of the burglary that would bring him to wabash. i was hanging out with the wrong people. and i was strung out on drugs
we also met his father, william jones sr., who had turned him in to authorities after he burglarized his home. we had a lot of problems with him as a child. and i had just had enough. i mean literally had had enough. i know me going to prison messed him up a lot. because he feels like it s his fault. and it s not. if i wasn t doing the things i was doing i would have never went. i lived for two years blaming myself for it, because of the amount of time that he got for stealing stuff that he did. and then i realized one day that if i wouldn t have stopped him it could have escalated into maybe breaking into somebody s house that had a gun. and maybe not having him at all. i still feel bad about it to this day. but i think i made the right choice for him and for me. we also met jones mother, angie spurlock. this has been the best week
into the lives of men who grew up in the small towns that dot america s heartland. few, however, came from the towns any smaller than the one in which wabash is located. we re actually driving into carlisle, indiana. we have the town store. but it s actually a really cool little town. it s i think it s very typical, small midwest town. this is our lunch spot. there s really good baked spaghetti and pizza. that s pretty much all that s on the menu. but it s good. during our shoot at wabash, we met a young man who appeared typical of many of the inmates. william jones jr. grew up in the small central indiana town of shelbyville, far away from the negative influences of big cities. it ain t very big. i like it. a lot of people don t like it. i like it. there s not a whole lot to do but, you know, just hang out with friends. wrong ones at that, i guess.
and broke into a house. jones stole several items including a tv and sold them for drugs. the house he robbed was his father s, and this time his father turned him in to the police. my dad is an emotional suspect. he done what was right. i don t despise him in any way. i still love him like i did. having clearly lived a troubled life on the outside, we were curious to see how his life would continue to develop on the inside. but shortly after we met jones, his time at wabash was up. the day william jones jr. got released i was responsible for meeting the family at the front of the prison and driving with them to the back of the prison where william would be released. middle arm will go up. thanks, guys. i was riding in the car with casey, who was william s brother