$6250 for each of his 28 years behind bars. from 2016 to 2020, 374 people wrongfully convicted of murder, 61% african-americans, have reunited with their families together they spent over 6000 years in prison. years. years they will never get back. that's all for this edition of dateline. i am craig melvin. thank you for watching. i am craig melvin and this is dateline. leading up to this assign what it was going to be like. >> i had so many thoughts leading to this assignment as to what it would be like. trying to imagine going down isoad, knowing it's a one- way trip. this moment where you get your last glimpse of the world around you, but that glimpse is through steelman mesh. >> louisiana highway 66. it's beautiful countryside and undoubtedly not lost on the countless men driven to the place where they will most likely die. that 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, angola is the largest maximum-security prison in the country where today, i will be housed with about 5500 men. i am heading into ground zero of mass incarceration. there is a heightened awareness as i walked through here with no guards. for the next couple of days, i will be staying here, exploring key issues of the person reform debate. juveniles sentenced to life without parole. >> we were children when we got incarcerated. >> the lasting effect of the war on drugs. the power of rehabilitation. >> your life is worthwhile. >> the demand by many for punishment. >> i think he's where he needs to be. >> i will stay in a cell to better understand the purpose and experience of prison all from the inside. >> hello and welcome to dateline. we have all heard the saying, lock him up and throw away the key. critics say that has been our country's approach for crime for two we long. they question whether mass incarceration is keeping a 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 mesquite toughest penitentiary and this is what he witnessed. here is his special report. life inside. >> life it angola prison is not what you might imagine. the vast majority live like this. more than 80 men and open dorms, sleeping on bunkbeds. i will be staying in a unit next to death row for high risk offenders are in my case, a high-profile guest. >> we will go down here. >> my home will be on a tier called ccr a closed cell restriction. the men here are locked in their cells 23 hours a day. i am given sheets, slippers, and toiletries and shown to my cell. >> cell 11. go in here, please. go ahead and close. >> naturally, phones are not allowed. all i have is my journal, a pen, a novel, my watch, and am/fm radio. i have cameras around me installed by our crew to record my experience and my thoughts. as journalists, we note to get to the heart of something have to get inside it. the closer you are to something, the more is revealed to you. i soon meet my neighbor, william curtis who is serving a life sentence for second-degree murder. he tells me he is locked in ccr because he has tried to escape multiple times. how far did you get? >> not very. >> he's only allowed out one hour a day. do you go out? >> not very often. the last time was probably four years ago. >> you haven't seen the sun in four years? i just want to get through the night. take care of yourself. we will be here a couple of days. i quickly learned the falling asleep in prison is challenging. the toilets flush loudly and often. cell to cell chatter that lasts well into the night. my bed is attached to the wall to curtis is so when he moves around, i feel it. the bed is not much for comfort. it's kind of a plastic mattress, but it did the trick. i slept okay. breakfast arrives at 5:30 a.m., delivered by a prisoner. in case you are wondering, it's scrambled eggs, grits and biscuits to the sound of a flushing toilet. no country on earth locks up more of its citizens than the united states. while we make less than 5% of the world's population, we lock up more than 20% of the world's prisoners. politicians, academics, and activists say mass incarceration is an american crisis. >> we've gone from $6 billion in spending to $80 billion today. >> a civil rights lawyer brian stevenson is one of the nation's leading prison reform advocates. >> we have hundreds of thousands of people in prison who are not a threat. >> is it about safety or punishment? >> we created a culture that makes it entirely about punishment. >> you might be surprised to us thanks mass incarceration is a problem. the people who run louisiana's prison system. >> nationwide, we lock up people too long and too many of them. >> smith is the director of operations for louisiana's department of corrections. >> it's not working and not giving the results it wants. it's costing a lot of money. we key people that their time of danger is over. >> he says it's time for americans to rethink the purpose of prison from simply punishment to rehabilitation. you say it's about rehabilitation but a lot of americans think it is about punishment. this should be hell. >> they've done awful things. we can make somebody worse. >> plenty of the incarcerated to believe it is just about punishment. >> another day in the field. watch it make soap scum here... disappear... and sprays can leave grime like that ultra foamy melts it on contact. magic. new ultra foamy magic eraser. 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>> life. without parole. >> terry mays shot a man in the neck during a drug deal. you've been here how many years? >> 30. >> like prisons everywhere in america, most inmates get paid pennies per hour. how much do you get paid? >> two cents an hour. >> this job is not one of the more desired once? >> it is the bottom of the barrel. nobody want to be in the field. >> angola is not like any other maximum-security prison i've ever been to. all of this is angola. a series of prisons. they call them camps. you are from camp d? >> yes, sir. today to >> today we are picking carrots. should i be worried about my safety? >> well, if use an inmate, most definitely. >> a majority of the inmates are people of color. in fact, black men in america are six times as likely to be incarcerated as white men. i certainly cannot escape the optics. look around, mostly black men working on a former slave plantation under the watch of armed guards on horseback. it is unsettling to many. i know it's a sensitive subject and it troubled me a little bit. it made me uncomfortable talking to the guys. most of them look like me. african american. the history of this land as a slave plantation. do you see that as an issue? >> i can see how someone would have an issue with the. every land in louisiana was a slave plantation. growing vegetables, it's something given back to the prison itself. >> smith said the crops provide the inmate population fresh food but he says it 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. some have left young children behind who are among the 5 million kids in america who have had a parent in prison. jovan t has two of them. >> you know the way it works. you are in prison, your dad in prison, your kids and children. are you afraid for your children? >> i definitely am. my father got murdered when i was three years old. i never knew him. >> it is hard to imagine knowing you will spend the rest of your life here. especially if you are convicted as a teenager. advocates like brian stevenson say juvenile offenders should never be treated the same as an adult. >> we put thousands of kids and adult jails and start prosecuting the kids and states with no minimum age being tried as an adult. we should never put children and adult jails. >> what about one commit violent crimes like murder? >> we were children and we got incarcerated. >> i'm sitting in on a support room -- support group. they committed crimes before adults and given sentences of life without the possibility of parole. they are called juvenile lifers. >> i was 16. >> i was 17. >> i committed my crime at the age of 16. >> 2000 juvenile lifers like them and presented a. i was different at 17 then i am at 60 now. at 17, i knew right from wrong. how do you reconcile that? >> you have to be accountable. there's no excuse for what i did or what any of us done. >> they tell me they are no longer the boys they once were and are no longer a threat to society. how do i know they are not conning me? >> when we got the opportunity to show we are different, people could see. >> in the past few years, they have gotten new hope to make their case for a second chance. what gives you hope? >> right there. that's our man right there. state of louisiana. >> montgomery versus state of louisiana is a landmark supreme court ruling named after the oldest and longest serving member of this group. henry montgomery who is 72 years old when i met him. you were 17 years old when your sentence. do you remember what it was like to be 17? >> yeah. young and stupid. >> montgomery was indicted for murder in november 1963. the same month jfk was assassinated. he has been at angola for 55 years. >> i am behind 55 years. technology, i am 150 years behind. >> in 2012, the u.s. supreme court ruled mandatory life without parole sentences for juveniles are unconstitutional, pointing to science that says it's clear that adolescent brains are not yet fully mature. that ruling did not apply to people like henry montgomery who had already been sent away as a juvenile. that is why montgomery took his case to the supreme court and in 2016, he won. now, all juvenile lifers, no matter how long ago they were locked up can make a case that they deserve parole. mostly older guys over here? this 70-year-old clifford is one of them. i went to see him in the dorm where he lives. >> this is my bed right here. >> he has been locked up 61 years. since you have been here we have landed a man on the moon. think about that. >> there have been a lot of changes. >> six decades in prison have changed him and thanks to the man sitting next to him, hampton, he will have a chance at freedom. why do you think you deserve parole? >> i would not say i deserve parole. i would not use that word deserve because i took someone 's life. i could say that i have earned parole. >> and faked, hampton and montgomery will see the parole board the same day and i will be there. how are you feeling? u feeling? lester holt (voiceover): one of the things that struck me while walking around angola was how many men i met who seemed to be focused one of the things that struck onme while walking aroun angola was how many men i met who seemed to be focused on changing their lives. one of them is dalton. >> i knew i had to do something different than just do time and die in prison. >> since coming to angola in 2004, he says he has turned his life around by taking advantage of the person's programs. >> i graduated with a ba, 3.91 average. >> he earned a masters degree from a bible college. he became an ordained minister. a couple of times a week, gospel raps his former preaching to the population. >> ♪ >> it is hard to square the man sitting across with me with the horrible crime he committed. your actions caused the death of a baby. >> yeah. >> when he was 21, he was watching a stepson. the child was inconsolable. he shook the baby so violently he died. now he is serving a 60 year sentence for manslaughter. how do you move past that? how do you become a different person? >> at first, i didn't know what i was going to do. it was sickening to my heart that i would have done something like that. >> prejean said he was filled with anger which had its roots in his childhood. this is a picture of prejean and his father shortly before he was executed in the electric chair in 1990 in this very prison for killing a louisiana state trooper. >> kids watch television and they are like, your daddy is about to be fried chicken. by me have been the same name, people would call my name, i would put my head down because i was ashamed of what i believed that name had meant. >> over the years, he said programs at angola helped change him. opportunities that were not available when his father was here and still not available at most prisons across the country. >> there is a movement to try to provide the rehabilitation that was abandoned. people locked up with nothing to do and we know education is transformative. >> education and programs have proven to reduce violence inside prison. angola was once known as the bloodiest prison in america. things began to change in the 1990s when the prison began to focus on more than simply locking up people and feeding them. now, in addition to his popular annual inmate rodeo, there are a variety of programs. these men are training service dogs for veterans. there's even a radio station run by incarcerated men. >> the station that kicks behind the bricks. >> we give them more freedom depending on your behavior. we have a lot of programs led by other guys serving life sentences. it gives them purpose. >> it looks like an auto shop. i talked with john, a master mechanic at the prison's auto shop. >> i did not know how to change a spark plug before he came to prison. >> he has been incarcerated here since 1988 for killing his wife with a shotgun. even though he was sentenced to life without parole, he mentors nonviolent offenders and a reentry program. >> when you can come in here and change his life and go back out and stay out, you know you done something. your life is worthwhile. >> many graduates of the program work in a car dealership outside of new orleans. it turns out his life has been changed as well. 2022, louisiana governor john bell edwards commuted his sentence, making them eligible for parole. he was released in february 2023 after nearly 35 years in prison. but there are other offenders at angola who might never get a second chance. this man, sentenced to more than a lifetime. >> 150 years. >> you will hear his dramatic story, next. story, next. and it was the worst day. mom was crying. i was sad. colton: i was diagnosed with rhabdomyosarcoma. brett: once we got the first initial hit, it was just straight tears, sickness in your stomach, just don't want to get up out of bed. joe: there's always that saying, well, you've got to look on the bright side of things. tell me what the bright side of childhood cancer is. lakesha: it's a long road. it's hard. but saint jude has gotten us through it. narrator: saint jude children's research hospital works day after day to find cures and save the lives of children with cancer and other life-threatening diseases. thanks to generous donors like you, families never receive a bill from saint jude for treatment, travel, housing, or food, so they can focus on helping their child live. ashley: without all of those donations, saint jude would not be able to do all of the exceptional work that they do. narrator: for just $19 a month, you'll help us continue the life-saving research and treatment these kids need. tiffany: no matter if it's a big business or just the grandmother that donates once a month, they are changing people's lives. and that's a big deal. narrator: join with your debit or credit card right now, and we'll send you this saint jude t-shirt that you can proudly wear to show your support. nicole: our family is forever grateful for donations big and small because it's completely changed our lives and it's given us a second chance. elizabeth stewart: saint jude's not going to stop until every single kid gets that chance to walk out of the doors of this hospital cancer-free. narrator: please, don't wait. call, go online, or scan the qr code below right now. [music playing] - [narrator] life with ear ringing sounded like a constant train whistle i couldn't escape. then i started taking lipo flavonoid. with 60 years of clinical experience, it's the number one doctor recommended brand for ear ringing. and now i'm finally free. take back control with lipo flavonoid. former president trump is set to virtually meet with a probation officer later today. becomes a little over week after his conviction on 34 felony counts in his hush money trial. the sentencing is set for july 11. police in madison, wisconsin, are investigating after a early morning shooting that left 10 injured. none of the injuries are considered life-threatening and no suspect or motive has been identified. i'm craig melvin. does the punishment fit the crime? welcome back to dateline. i am craig melvin. does the punishment fit the crime? it is a question at the heart of the prisoner debate especially when it comes to drug-related offenses. for the man you are about to make, parole board 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. >> and my three days at angola, most of the men i spoke with had committed violent crimes and received long sentences. life without parole. >> yeah. >> like every person, there are nonviolent offenders serving laws sentences that might as well be life. john is one of them. >> i grew up in a middle-class neighborhood. >> he's a war vet that said he was lost and broken when he came home. >> 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. >> my sentence was 150 years. >> that's right. 150 years and he is served 20 so far as. 's case is a prime example of harsh sentencing laws for drug dealers and users the legacy of the government's decades long war on drugs. more than 450,000 people in america are locked up for a drug offense. brian said criminalizing drug addiction is misguided. >> we said this people are criminals and we did not have to say that. we could of said drug addiction is a health problem. >> is that why jails are so full? >> absolutely. this misguided war on drugs is at the top of the list. >> things have been changing. the first step act