"Issues for the New Millennium: You Dont Want To Live in My House" Transcript

One of the saddest things that I get to hear is young men tell me,
"I don't care if I go to prison. It's no big deal to go to prison. Who cares?"
Let me tell you, that's the voice of someone who's never seen the inside of a prison.
I've seen the inside of a prison, I've spent most of my adult life in prison,
over 20 years, and I'll tell you, guys inside prison, they care.
Today I want you to see the inside of a prison.
Come into my house and look around, because right now,you get to see the outside of the door.
When you come in here this time, look around. I never want you to see this side of the door.
>> Well, I would say the hardest thing for teens being in a prison system like ours is the adjustment.
They give up their freedom, and we take total control of their lives.
Everything is on a schedule, everything is controlled by us,
and they get very little choices in anything at all.
>> Currently we have the whole gamut of crimes.
I've seen everything from retail theft, operate a motor vehicle without owner's consent, to murder.
I talked to an inmate who had six life sentences that was here at Green Bay.
The youngest inmate I've seen is 15 years old. The oldest that I know of is about 65.
A predominant factor in the crime that these inmates are committing, or juveniles
are committing, is drug and alcohol use.
>> There were obvious signs there. You're running with a bunch a morons, acting like a moron yourself,
what the hell did you think you were gonna get? But at the time, hell, no.
At the time, I was 19, invincible, had the world by the ass. And then it bit me.
>> Yeah, smoking weed, drinking hard liquor. By the time I was 11 or 12, I was smoking cigarettes,
just running the streets. I didn't really pay attention to my family, what they told me.
I did what I wanted to do, basically so...
>> I pretty much started getting in trouble when I was about 11 years old.
I started running away, started just skipping school, things like that.
>> I came to prison when I was 17 years old.
>> I was 16 years old when I came to prison.
>> I came to a maximum security prison when I was 19.
Ah, I first got in trouble when I was 17.
>> I went to Ethan Allen when I was 12 for armed robbery.
>> I was convicted about 14 years old.
>> I was 16 years old when I was arrested.
>> The youngest guy I've seen was 14 that came in here. And it's horrible.
>> I've been in prison six years.
I've been locked up almost ten years now.
I got locked up when I was 14, and I've only been out nine months out of all that time.
>> I lost ten years of my life for drugs, ten years.
They sentenced me to ten years because I wanted to be cool and do drugs and fit in with the big crowd so...
>> Well, there's not any daylight at the end of my sentence because I have a life bid.
>> I just, I lied to my probation officer. I was drinking. I started drinking again,
and one thing led to another, and I got revocated, and here I am in a maximum security prison.
>> Yeah, they gave me 10 years in and 15 out.
>> He watched it in a maximum penitentiary with a life sentence
for a first-degree intentional attempted homicide.
>> I lived a...a dangerous lifestyle, a lifestyle of robberies and gun toting
and using drugs and selling drugs and...a dangerous lifestyle.
>> I got involved with gang activities, drug dealing. Started selling drugs at a young age.
>> Well, I was into drugs, gangs, women, stealing, robbing, you know.
I was into just, you know, making a mockery of everything.
I didn't care about nothing, you know.
I didn't care about my life. I didn't care about living or dying.
>> My parole eligibility is January 1, 2075. I'll be a 102 years old.
But they never let you out on your first try so...
>> Green Bay is approximately 106 years old.
It is a maximum security institution.
More of the traditional concept, that being that it consists of
two cell halls with four tiers in each cell hall.
We also have two dormitories, a 150-bed segregation unit, a receiving unit, several specialty units.
Our current population is 1,045 inmates.
>> It ain't the Taj Mahal. It ain't the Marriot.
>> This cell is identical to every other cell on this side of the cell hall, 5 1/2 feet wide.
You can stretch your arms out and touch both walls. It's 9 feet deep.
You've got...this is the thickness of your mattress every day of your life.
You've got your desk for writing.
You've got toilet, sink. You're basically living in a small bathroom.
Most people would consider this a small bathroom on the streets, and you call it home.
This is your house, and you wake up here, and you look around, and the walls don't move.
Nothing changes. It'll bore you to death. You've got to really find ways to not go crazy in these cells.
And as tight as it is, this cell is huge because it's a privilege I have
because I'm lucky enough to have a job. I get a single occupancy cell.
Double cells, you stack this bunk two high, put two guys in it. Then it really gets tight in here.
>> It's not pretty. I'm just gonna--excuse me, your feet--I'll show you, though.
It took me three steps, maybe four, to get to this toilet.
When I have to crap or my celly has to crap, this is where we sit.
>> This is Dorm A, where I been living at for approximately eight years now.
I live here with approximately 112 other men, and what I want to show you is
the close living quarters that we have to live in and just how life is here in a dorm.
>> Living in a dorm has some benefits. You have some people you can talk to. Some people, you know, gets loud.
>> At times, it can be very hard--very hard--because you deal with 100 different people with 100 different emotions.
>> No privacy at all, whatsoever.
Living in a dorm, I'm dealing with so many different personalities.
It's not like in a cell hall when you're able to just--you're dealing with your roomy,
but you're dealing with 50, 55 other guys including yourself.
>> One of the things you get out of the cell for is showers, and that's twice a week.
You're walking down into a dungeon-like arena, 37 shower heads, way too close together for comfort,
nothing separating you from the guy next to you. You don't know who he is, you don't know what he is and...
You're picking up--you're dropping off your soiled linens. You pick up your fresh linens.
You're wearing someone else's underwear, showering in someone else's shower, standing on someone else's
athlete's foot mold, or what have you. If high school gym class showers bothered you, this'll really bother you.
You hear about the perks of prison, having it easy, television, radio, guys just laying around all day.
You don't want to lay around all day. The last thing you want to do is be in this cell.
Guys beg, plead for jobs, for any excuse.
They sign up for programs, sometimes because they want to take that program to improve.
A lot of times, I think, because it's just a hell of a lot better than sitting in this cell.
And when you get out of this cell, you cherish every moment.
And I never loved work so much in my life, and I think I liked my job pretty much on the streets.
But had I known that I would have a hunger for work like I do when I'm sitting in this small house,
I would have been at work a hell of a lot more and would have gone without this experience.
>> I'm one of the fortunate ones. I do have a job.
But jobs in prison, contrary to popular belief, are a privilege.
>> There's jobs that you can obtain throughout the prison.
Whether or not you're one of the half that is allowed to get a job is a hard situation to decide.
You make 16 cents an hour, probably brings you $10 every two weeks.
>> I get paid 28 cents an hour just to mop the floors.
>> The things you have to buy in prison--I think people don't understand or they take for granted
is that you don't get shampoo, and you don't get a bar of soap, and you don't get hair conditioner or toothpaste or
a toothbrush or things like that. Those are the things you actually have to save up and buy.
>> When we buy hygiene products or food products off the canteen list, they're not--they're not reduced.
They're the same price as they are on the streets.
>> So to maintain your hygiene, your food, you know, keep yourself full, clothes if you want something,
a T-shirt maybe, it's almost impossible at $10 every two weeks. By the time you buy your hygiene,
you got maybe $1.50 or $2 to buy yourself some soups or a box of cookies or something to eat.
So you really don't maintain in here. You just go from day to day borrowing stuff if that's what you got to do to.
>> One unique feature about a prison chow hall is that you get your food through a hole in the wall.
You don't get to see who prepares it. You don't get to see how much they put on each tray.
You get to see none of it. You grab what you get, and this is it, and you move on. Now, the tray's not bad.
It's institution food. It's like school lunch programs when you went to school. The only difference is that
I don't only eat lunch here. I eat breakfast, I eat lunch, and I eat supper, and I eat it day after day,
week after week, year after year. And some of us, it's for the rest of our lives.
And you'll see we use a spork. Not a fork. Not a spoon. Not a knife. A spork.
>> On the inside in the prison, you can expect routine. It's the same thing day in, day out.
It's very structured. We tell you when to get up. We tell you when to go to bed. We tell you when to eat.
We tell you when you get to shower. We tell you when to go to school. We tell you when you get recreation.
And it's the same thing seven days a week, 24 hours a day.
The rules you have on the street is nothing like the rules you're gonna have in here. We have books of rules for you.
>> There's a lot of rules. A lot of rules. You get in trouble for almost anything.
>> Well, when I was at home, I didn't have any rules. My parents set rules for us,
but now that I look back at that, there wasn't really rules. Compared to this, that was freedom.
No matter how many ground rules they would have set for me, even if they would have grounded me,
that was still freedom compared to this.
They can search my cell any time they want to. Not just my cell but my personal body.
They can invade everything that I consider privacy. There ain't none in here.
When they search my cell, they pull me out of here, and they tear everything up.
If they want to search me, they can pull me out of here just because, without no reasonable cause,
strip me down naked, search every cavity in my body without having a cause, without having no reason for it.
They don't have to explain nothing to me. I can ask, "Why you doing this?"
They don't have to say nothing. They don't have to explain themselves. I'm a prisoner.
Basically, I'm somebody else's property right now.
>> Yes, there's a lot of orders and rules in prison that you got to follow by or be disciplinary.
>> Here we are in the segregation unit.
This is where they send you if, even after being sentenced to prison, you can't control your behavior.
As you can see, plenty of guys are in that situation. This is one of four wings.
>> Man, there's a lot of rules here, man-- everything. You got--they got rule for everything:
the way you tie your shoes, wear your clothes, everything.
>> Rules: if you--if you don't get up in the morning and go to chow, you got to get up and close your door.
If you don't stand up for count, you can get a ticket. If you don't go to school, you can get a ticket.
If you don't walk between the red lines, you can get a ticket. They got plenty of rules.
>> You can come to seg for anything. Whatever is against them rules, they'll send you to seg for.
You argue with the COs, you don't put your tray up, you walk slow in the line,
you loiter on the tier, you pass stuff, all that stuff can get you sent here.
>> I think out of my eight years in prison, I think I'd a spent
close to five or six years in segregation for behavior problems.
>> It ain't never quiet. 24 hours a day yelling, banging, pounding, screaming,
cell fighting all day long, every day. It don't ever get quiet.
>> The picture sort of tells you all you need to know. It's Spartan existence.
There's nothing. You've got a cement slab on which your state issue furled mattress is rested,
your...I don't know what the material is, but it's not exactly comfortable to sleep on, your bedroll.
The thing that you have to understand about this cell is, well, it looks bad for the
few minutes you're seeing it on camera. Imagine being in this setting,in this nothingness,
24 hours a day, every day of the week, for up to 360 days. This is what bad behavior within prison gets you.
>> When you come here, you're on your own. Nobody's gonna be looking out for you.
Nobody's gonna be taking care of you. Your buddies you had on the street,
they're not gonna write. They're not gonna visit. They're not gonna call.
They're gonna tell you they're gonna take care of you, they're gonna put money on your books,
they're gonna look out for you, but a month after being in prison, you're on your own.
>> I have a lot of friends before I came to prison, but now there's not anybody.
>> They all gone now. You don't hear from none of 'em after--
You know, most of 'em gone when you--right away. Couple hang around for a while. After that, that's it.
>> Once I got--I felt my friends begin to peel off.
You know, they always said they'll be around, but that wasn't the case.
>> You know majority of the friends that I was in the gang with, majority of them are dead, you know.
Majority of 'em are dead or in prison with me now today.
>> The rare visits you get are all holidays.
It's just cake to be able to go up, give your family members, your friends a big hug.
The visiting process itself is... I've grown pretty jaded to it,
but I talk to young guys who've just come in, and they're still shocked by the strip search,
by the indignity of it all. It's not dignity we had taken away. It's dignity we gave away.
Nobody came here by total accident.
Your visitors coming in are treated like criminals them- selves. And they have to be.They associate with you so...
You know you're a drain on them because you know that those visits hurt them.
A lot a people are doing the time with you in this little cell whether they're here or not.
They're just as locked up as you are because you've taken everything away from them too.
>> Since I came to jail, I miss a few of my friends, my family, my brothers, hanging out, pretty much my freedom.
>> There's just the little things I miss, you know. Just sleeping in my own bed or eating my food that I like.
>> You know, missing my kids. Not watching 'em grow up and watching 'em going to school in the morning,
making 'em breakfast, you know. That's the hardest thing that affect me the most,
and, you know, not being able to go to the park with them or something.You know, just missing them.
>> You don't think about the time on a minute-to-minute basis, even day to day.
If anything, that's what you're trying to block out. You're trying not to think about
the time as that block because just getting through every day is the struggle.
It's down to life in its most simple form. You're just putting one foot in front of another. You're existing.
Whatever living you were doing, that was before, and you got to find
a whole new way to live in here, and it doesn't feel a lot like living.
>> I miss being able to go outside when I want to. I miss seeing a tree trunk.
What I get to see is over the top of the wall.
I know trees have leaves, I remember that they have trunks, but I don't get to see them.
I miss a wash machine because that's my wash machine. I wash my underwear in here.
I wash my towels in the sink. I wash my socks in this sink. When I'm done washing 'em in there,
I take the time to clean my toilet, because I clean 'em in that toilet. That's where I rinse 'em.
I clean that toilet because it's really the only place to rinse your laundry.
I miss being able to do my laundry in a machine. I miss being able to talk to my family when I want to.
I miss being able to take walks. I miss being able to see a river.
I miss everything that you don't see inside these four walls.
>> Don't come here. This is a no-win situation. If you have any way to change your life,
to find someone to talk to, to help you stay out of trouble, do it.
You can overcome being in prison, but the odds are against you.
It's not a fun place to be, and depending on what you do, you could spend the rest of your life here.
>> I have 23 years experience working in institutions. I have job security.
One of the things I'm hoping for is that something in this video will make a difference and you won't come here.
I don't need to worry about losing my job. I have more than enough people here to take care of.
>> If I had any one message to give to you for teens or young adults and that would be is
Look at what you're doing. Evaluate who your friends are.
Decide whether you want to spend your life behind bars or you want to have a life on the streets.
You make the choices. You're making decisions. Other people are influencing you.
Try to find people who will influence you to go straight and be successful
instead of failure and coming to me and my system.
>> This is a world inside of a world.
>> Man, I don't want to be one of these guys that are 50 years old in here
that talk about this is their seventh time in the joint.
>> Yeah, I knew there was a chance I would go to prison, but at the time, I was too hardheaded.
I wasn't thinking, you know. I wanted what I wanted, and I didn't care what anybody else said about it.
I...self-centered and didn't think.
>> Pretty much, yeah, I was Superman, invincible. Like, metal, nothing could pierce me.
>> Why should you care? I'm not asking you to care. I'm not asking any of you to care.
I'm asking the kids to care about themselves, to care about what they're gonna do,
what choices they make so that they don't end up like I did.
>> I don't want them to use me as an example. I want them to use me as a vision that says,
"This is where I can end up. I don't want to be that person."
I don't want to be an example. I want to be a deterrent.
>> I knew that people were in prison, but I thought that that was just something that happened to others. Not to me.
>> It's not the place to be.
>> It's rough: you're around rapists, child molesters, killers. It's not a pleasant place.
>> Very lonely. Very, very lonely, you know, but I also have to realize is I brought myself here.
You know, I caused this. This is something that I caused for myself, you know, by the bad decision making that I made.
>> Man, a lot a kids say they don't care about coming to prison,
don't care about getting locked up, coming to the hole.
Man, I used to be that kid. I used to be out there doing that same stuff:
you know, stealing from my family, stealing cars, all that stuff.
>> But it's hard. It's very hard at times, especially for being so young and having so much potential
--to have it taken away just like that because of the wrong choices I made.
>> I'm in a maximum security prison. I don't know how much more serious this can get.
I mean, I've got five years left, but after I get out, I'm gonna be a felon my whole life.
You know, if you don't think this can happen to you, you better think twice.
I mean, I know guys in here that's got life in prison
just because they think they can go party over the weekend.
>> I think I had to go all the way back to I was like 10 or 11. You know, and it starts from decision making there.
>> At first, I was free. Now--now I'm in captivity where it's basically you got to
follow orders of whatever they say and bite your tongue, like, every minute of a minute.
>> You no longer are the one who decides where your life goes.
And getting used to that is, it's something I don't think the human animal is capable of.
>> Well, I'll tell these kids that one thing is that family's always important,you know,always get your education,
and, you know, and stay away from the wrong crowd, because they gonna bring you down one way or another.
>> My advice to kids would probably be just be yourself.
Don't be afraid to be who you are, and don't do things to fit in with the crowd.
You know, you don't have to smoke weed, you don't have to drink alcohol,
you don't have to commit crimes or be a gang member to be cool and to be accepted, you know.
You can just be who you are, you know.
>> Now you've seen the inside of a prison. And believe me, none of the men you saw today planned to come to prison.
Getting here is not difficult.
Sometimes it's a shock. But the biggest shock is yet to come.
It's when you get here.
What I want you to know is, you saw what it's like inside of here.
You had a glimpse on the inside of this door. Keep your focus on the outside.
Never look at the inside of this door again.
>> It was really depressing when they put me in this cell, because you walk into this cell,
you see that you're surrounded, and you realize, "This is where I'm gonna spend the rest of my life,"
you know. And then the door closes behind you, and you realize they control your life.
I had hopes and dreams for my future. I could have been anything that I wanted to be in life.
And I tricked it all off and everything that my parents ever hoped for me went down the drain.
And I watched them die, knowing that I never became the man they dreamt I could be.
I hope they knew that I really did not plan to hurt them, to disappoint them so much with....failure.