Everyday life. This systems set up for them to fail, because when they come out of prison, theres nothing for them. And inside one state thats trying to fix a broken system. Incarceration has become the response to every social problem that we encounter. Jail doesnt work, prison doesnt work. We need to distinguish between who were mad at and who were afraid of. Tonight ofrontline. Prison state. Frontlinis made possible by contributions to your pbs station from viewers like you. Thank you. And by the corporation for public broadcasting. Major support for frontliis provided by the john d. And catherine t. Macarthur foundation. Committed to building a more just, verdant and peaceful world. More information is available at macfound. Org. Additional funding is provided by the park foundation, dedicated to heightening Public Awareness of critical issues. The wyncote foundation. And by the frontline journalism fund, with major support from jon and Jo Ann Hagler, and a grant from james worth. My name is keith huff. Im from louisville, kentucky. Ive been incarcerated five times in the kentucky state prison system. I got a total of 27 years in the system. Is it okay to go in . Yeah. Thank you, sir. Narrator keith huff is a milliondollar prisoner. The state of kentucky has spent an estimated 1. 1 million incarcerating him. Hes been diagnosed with schizophrenia and bipolar disor. whispering prayer i do great in prison for some reason. Its sad, but i do great in prison, i mean, because i got the structure, people telling me what to do. When i got somebody behind me, on me, i do great in life, for real, i really do. Narrator keith is currently serving five years for burglary, theft and impersonating a police officer. Hes set to be released in three months. I do some stupid stuff. I have been coming in and out of prison since the early 80s. Every time i have left prison, it was like a revolving door. Its just a cycle. Its a curse. And where i come from, the neighborhood i come from, most everybody get locked up, and i mean everybody. sirens blaring narrator keith is from beecher terrace, a Housing Project in the west end of louisville, kentucky, where one in six people cycle in and out of prison every year. Of the west end. Yes, a lot of people in my family have been locked up. My big brother been locked up, my daddy. My uncles been to prison. Yeah, my daddy and my granny. Narrator kentucky spends more than 15 million a year incarcerating people just from beecher terrace and the surrounding neighborhoods. My brother ike has been locked up three or four times. My best friend erics in prison right now. My uncle, well almost all my uncles. Id say ive been incarcerated 50 times. My granddaddys been locked up, my sisters been locked up, my cousins, all of them. Narrator this is the story of a year in the lives of four residents of beecher terrace. I got cousins on both sides that been locked up. Narrator men whove been in and out of prison for decades. I spent more time in prison than ive been in society. Thats a shame narrator children getting locked up for the first time. When i go to jail, i dont feel like it teaches me a lesson. She is so angry. Christel could be heading towards prison if she doesnt get it right right now. My mothers been locked up. You know, the United States locks up more people than any other country in the world. Me and my cousin got some crack cocaine. Narrator its the story of a place where incarceration is almost inevitable. Incarceration has become the response to every social problem that we encounter. They doing bad at school . Lock them up. Problem in the home . Lock them up. Narrator . And of a state trying to break the cycle. We really have to look at a paradigm shift in this business of how we operate justice. Jail doesnt work. Prison doesnt work. Im 15 years old, and im in here basically for skipping school. My name is christel tribble, and i live in beecher terrace. Its basically a regular ghetto. I know a lot of people thats been in jail. My dad, my uncle. Well, almost all my uncles, my cousins. But im my own person. I want to go American Idol when i get old enough, or i want to be a detective. Narrator christel is 15. She lives with her mother and Four Brothers and sisters in a twobedroom apartment on beecher terrace. Her father has been locked up most of her life. I think it played a real big part in christels life. Not good. She really didnt know him, he didnt really know her. So it was like every time he got out, he was starting over, starting over, starting over. So for the child, i think it fills them a lot with anger, which causes a whole lot of problems as they get older, you know . I dont like him. Every time he told me he was gonna come back and stuff like that and be in my life, he lied. As i got older, i didnt care about my daddy anymore. I wanna believe that my mamas my daddy too, so. I dont wanna talk about it no more. sighs christel started acting out a little bit when she was in elementary, but she really started acting up when she hit middle school. As she got older, all this stuff was just waiting to come out. It was just waiting. yelling narrator last year, christel was diagnosed with bipolar disorder and adhd. A hundred mother bleep cant tell me nothin. Narrator after a classroom fight, she was sent to an alternative school for disruptive children. Put it in your kidney got a new ls 450 aint no keys in this dohicky. Narrator now she stopped showing up and has just been summoned to court for truancy. This is all coming down on you. You know which way youre heading to . Piggie, do you like it . Are you sure . Because were back in the court again for the truancy. If they got to, if they feel like they have to, they could lock you up. Is that what you want . This is stuff that they can do because you gave them permission to. Look at me. Just think. If you graduate, go to a college, this is something you can talk about with pride because you can share your stories with other kids. Youll be one of the hood project kids that proved a whole lot of people wrong, and i know you can. I know you can. Your family, we know you can. Cant nobody do nothing about this but you. Thats it, just you. Quit being a knucklehead. In these communities where incarceration has become so normalized, the system operates practically from cradle to grave. When youre born, your parent has likely already spent time behind bars. Youre likely to attend schools that have zero tolerance policies, where Police Officers patrol the halls, where disputes with teachers are treated as criminal infractions, where a schoolyard fight results in your first arrest. You find that at a very, very young age, even the smallest infractions are treated as criminal. And thats where it begins. It sends this message that whether you follow the rules or you dont, youre going to jail just like your uncle, just like your father, just like your brother, just like your neighbor. You too are going to jail. Its part of your destiny. Hey, hows it going, man . Anything good going on . Got everything under control . Yes, sir. How you doing . Narrator since the 1970s, the number of people locked up in the United States has grown from 300,000 to 2. 3 million. Kentucky has been at the center of this prison and jail expansion. The number of inmates here has risen faster than in almost any other state. Our number one frequent flier has been in and out of here over the last five years about 95 times. And he is not dangerous, and throughout the entire criminal justice system, we have probably spent millions of dollars on this guy. Gentlemen, good afternoon. Im director bolton. Narrator louisvilles jail is a few hundred yards from beecher terrace. Its home to inmates awaiting trial or serving time for minor offenses. Weve got a jail capacity of 1,793 beds. Whos been in here longer than 72 hours . Anybody . No, longer than 72 hours. On any given day, we are trending over 2,000, sometimes as high as 2,100, 2,200. Were crowded. I mean, were crowded. If i can get you out of here, because i need the space, were going to get you out of here. Okay . Were always over capacity. Were always having to house inmates in nooks and crannies, on the floor, in any Available Space that we have. How you doing . Detoxing pretty hard . Yeah. Heroin . Lets see. Boy, you were using a lot. At any given time, were detoxing up to 90 people. Residential detox beds are full, so more often than not, they come here to jail. How you guys doing . Could be better. So what are you in here for . Heroin. Heroin . Dont have room for you here. Were locking up people that were pissed off at. We ought to be using this space for people that were afraid of, violent folks, people that are going to hurt me and you. Weve gone through just an explosion of jail and prison construction in this country, costing us billions and billions of dollars to build and billions and billions of dollars to operate. And weve come, i think, to a fork in the road where we just cant do that anymore because number one, we cant afford it, and secondly, we are locking people up that dont need to be locked up. My names Charles Mcduffie, age 67, and im here for breaking the law. Get in there narrator Charles Mcduffie is in state prison serving a fiveyear sentence for burglary. I had a drug problem. I turned to drugs for help. Itll ease your mind for a minute, and then youre right back to where you started from, you know . But, uh. Here i am, man, still here. Still here. Narrator 45 years ago, mcduffie served with the 11th cavalry in vietnam. helicopter chopping thats when i first started doing drugs, started drinking, was in vietnam. And, uh. gunfire plane engines revving i started smoking marijuana, and it seemed like it made it easier, you know, to get through it, you know, but. Man, vietnam was crazy, man. It was crazy. Uh. Ive seen a lot of killing and stuff, man, you know . gunfire explosions that was rough. It was rough. plane engine humming mcduffie helicopter chopping narrator since vietnam, mcduffie says hes had almost no Mental Health treatment. Hes set to be released from prison in two months. Keeping him locked up over the years has cost an estimated 200,000. Incarcerating people is very, very expensive. Creating an infrastructure to house and control hundreds of thousands of people costs billions of dollars. And whats bizarre is that weve actually taken money away from systems that are designed to help people stay out of jail and prison education, health and human services, family services, social services to fund an investment in incarceration. And you invest it in jails and prisons, almost conceding that theres a whole community that has to go to jail or prison, we cant do anything for them other than incarcerate them. My momma was locked up, my daddy, my cousins on my momma and daddys side, most of them have been locked up. I got uncles, brothers, everybody. I got 11 charges. Who gets 11 charges at the age of 14 . Who does that . I dont even. I really didnt even peep myself getting that many charges. I didnt even peep myself going to court that many times. Like, where did all the time go . When did all these charges come . What . Narrator demetria grew up on beecher terrace. Shes already been to juvenile jail three times. Shes now been charged with assaulting her aunt her legal guardian and placed in a shelter run by the juvenile courts. She is on medication for anxiety disorder. I just got a short temper. Its like my anger be taking over. I dont know. When people get on bad with me, i just cant let nobody talk crazy to me. Like, i feel like i got to Say Something back. Come here, come on, talk to me, baby. All this fighting, violence, that does not solve the problem, baby, in life. It really doesnt. It makes it worse. A lot of kids ive worked with over the years, theyre dead or theyre in prison doing long time. When i say life, theyre doing life, and thats not a good life. Narrator when demetria was nine, her mother was shot dead. The police say she killed herself. Her family thinks she was murdered. Shes still having a difficult time in dealing with her moms death. Several times, she expressed to me thats why she fights because she is still mad about her moms death. Youre going to have to break the cycle. So do you plan on breaking the cycle . And at the rate that shes going, i really fear prison and death for her if she dont turn some things around. Dont start lying. Theres socks in here . I know whats in the box, but. Spread out, baby. Kick your foot back. No, i dont think im no bad person. I dont try to get locked up. I dont think going to jails good. But when i go to jail, i dont feel like it teaches me a lesson. I feel like it just makes me even more mad. It dont do nothing. Like, you know how people are like, it taught me a lesson . It dont teach me a lesson. It just makes me even more mad, like, so now i have to do all this time . Cool. When i get out, this really might be world war three. Thats exactly what goes through my mind world war three. Narrator if demetria is found guilty of assault, she could face a year in juvenile detention. Incarceration has become the response to every social problem that we encounter. Theyre doing bad at school, lock them up. If theres a problem in the home or behavior problem, you wanna lock them up. And so weve criminalized an entire population of our young people instead of responding to it appropriately in the community, in the schools, in the home with social services. We want to do the ultimate response we want to lock them up and teach them a lesson. But we could take each one of these inmates and put them up at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel in new york for a month with room service and still not get to the amount of money were spending every year for them. Does that make sense . sirens blaring narrator it costs the state an average of 87,000 a year to incarcerate a child. Kentucky spends more than 50 million annually locking up juveniles, most of whom have never committed a violent offense. We need to distinguish between who were mad at and who were afraid of. The United States comprises about four and a half to five percent of the worlds population, yet we incarcerate 24 to 25 of the worlds prisoners. And then you look at kentucky, and over the past decade, from about 2010 backward to about 99, we had a prison growth rate of 45 . The average for the rest of the country was 13 . Kentucky had truly become the epicenter for prison growth. Our spending jumped almost 220 to nearly half a billion dollars. bell ringing narrator now states like kentucky can no longer afford this growth and are trying to reduce their prison population. In 2011, the Kentucky Legislature passed a law overhauling incarceration in the state. Thousands of nonviolent offenders like keith huff will be released early over the next decade. Some of the money saved will be spent on treatment for addicts like Charles Mcduffie. Its controversial, but the bill estimates savings of somewhere near half a billion dollars over a decade. Nobody would dispute that prison serves a core function of government. We need to segregate those individuals who are a threat to public safety. Those individuals that were mad at, there may be a better way. There may be treatment, there may be intense supervision, there may be any number of things that would serve not only the individual better and his or her family, but society much better as well. Um, well, today im being discharged and im really happy about that. Im a little kind of jittery, though, but you know, it just comes with the turf. But most likely, im excited to go home today. Take care of yourself, man. I got you, brother. Take your butt on up out of here, man. Take care of yourself. Thank you, man. Take care of yourself, stay out of trouble. Im not coming back to penitentiary. Aint no ifs or buts, im not coming back. Ill do everything in my power to stay out. I dont care if i have to call anybody to get me some help. Im not coming back here. engine revving okay, youre good to go. The most beautiful sight in the world. Narrator under the kentucky reforms, keith is being released six months early. This should save the state more than 15,000 if he doesnt get sent back to prison. Im glad to be released early, but i know its going to be really hard. Really hard. I dont know how im gonna get my Social Security and i dont even know how im gonna get my medicaid to pay for my medicines. No one gonna give me a job because im a convicted felon. All right, mr. Huff, im officer robinson. Narrator keith was diagnosed with his schizophrenia. In prison. He has a long history of burglary, fraud, theft, and Substance Abuse. Intensive parole supervision is supposed to help him stay out of trouble. Understand you shall submit to random alcohol and drug testing. Understand that seven nights a week, youre to be at the address on marion. Right. I am not here to send you back to prison. Thats not my goal. Yes, maam. My goal is that in six months, i can hand you that final discharge. You are this close to being done. You can do this. Yes maam, i know i can, thank you. So communicate with me, trust me. If somethings going on and i can help you, let me know and ill help you. Yes, maam. Hey, buddy, whats up . Whats going on . Im doing all right, you . Im not going back to beecher terrace this time because i want to get a fresh start in my life. Glad to be with you. God bless you for it. Hey, how you doing . Narrator keith has found a room in a group home for exprisoners. How you doing, sir . You wont have no problems out of me. I dont use drugs and alcohol, so im. I get along well with everybody, and i appreciate you giving me the opportunity, maam. And thats what its all about. Teds got this program to try to help people get themselves that second chance. Yes, maam, i appreciate you giving me the opportunity. Everyone deserves a second chance. Thats right. Of course, this is roberts third or fourth laughing weve been in prison together. His biggest challenge is, right now, surviving. The state is trying to pick up a little bit, but its still terrible. Yall aint got a coat or nothin . You dont have a coat . The system is set up for them to fail because when they come out of prison, there is nothing for them. And keith was released from prison with just the clothes on his back. No money, not even a winter coat. He came out with his khaki pants, a sweatshirt and that was it, and not a dime in his pockets. If it wasnt for this house, where would he be . I mean, hed be homeless and without a dime in his pocket. If im a criminal, whats the first thing im gonna do . Im gonna get me some money, and the only way i know how to get money is to do it my way. And theyre right back in where the