i had so many thoughts leading up to this assignment as to what it was gonna be like. trying to imagine going down this road, knowing it s a one-way trap. there s this moment when you get this last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steal match. louisiana s highway 66. it s a beautiful countryside. it s undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they ll most likely die. but road ends here. the louisiana state penitentiary. a former plantation the size of manhattan. 28 square miles. most people call it angola, named after the african country that was home to the slaves who once worked these very fields. now, angela is the largest maximum security prison in the country, where today, i ll be housed with about 5500 men. i m heading into ground zero of mass incarceration. there s certainly a heightened awareness as i walk through here. no guards. for the next couple days, i ll be staying here, explain key issues of the pri
open dorms, sleeping on bunk beds. but i ll be staying on a unit next death row, for high-risk offenders. or in my case, a high-profile guest. we re gonna go down here. my home for the next 2 nights i ll be on a tier called ccr or closed cell restriction. the men here are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. i m given sheets, slippers and some toiletries, and shown to my cell. cell 11, go ahead in, please. go ahead, close. naturally, phones aren t allowed. all i have is my journal, a pen, a novel, my watch and an am/fm radio. i also have cameras all around me installed by our crew to record my experience and my thoughts. as journalists we know that to get to the heart of something you have to get inside it. the
. they question whether mass incarceration is keeping us any safer and what lengthy prison terms mean for many of the more than two billion americans behind bars. lester holt spent three days in one of the nation s top toughest penitentiary s. this is what he witnessed. here is hearings special report, life inside. life at angola prison isn t what you might imagine. the vast majority live just like this. more than 80 men in open dorms, sleeping on bunk beds. but i ll be staying on a unit next to death row for high risk offenders, or in my case, a high profile guest. we re going to go down the tier here. my home for the next 2 nights i ll be on a tier called ccr or closed cell restriction. the men here are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. i m given sheets, slippers and some
key. critics say that has been our countries approach to crime for far too long. the the question whether mass incarceration is keeping us any safer. and, what lengthy prison terms mean for many of the more than 2 million americans behind bars. lester holt spent three days in one of the nation s toughest penitentiary s, and this is what he witnessed. here s his special report, life inside. life at angola prison isn t what you might imagine. the vast majority live just like this. more than 80 men in open dorms sleeping on bunk beds. but i ll be staying on a unit next to death row for high risk offenders, or in my case, a high profile guest. we re going to go down the tier here. my home for the next 2 nights will be on a tier called ccr or closed cell restriction.
sleeping on bunk beds. but i ll be staying on a unit next to death row for high risk offenders or in my case, a high profile guest. we re going to go down the tier here. my home will be on a tier called ccr or closed cell restriction. the men here are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. i m given sheets, slippers and some toiletries and shown to my cell. cell 11, go ahead in, please. go ahead, close. naturally phones aren t allowed. all i have is my journal, a pen, a novel, my watch and an am/fm radio. i also have cameras all around me installed by our crew to record my experience and thoughts. as journalists we know that