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Stacked on tiers five high. at its best, this is an inefficient design. officers are always having to climb stairs. >> where are the elevators? >> we're the elevators. a human elevator. >> but at its worst, the design of san quentin's cell blocks expose officers to inmate assault. >> with the age of the building, the way it's set up, almost anything you do, you're in direct contact with the inmates. >> hey how are you doing? >> when it's time for the inmates to go to the showers or the dining hall, an entire tier is released simultaneously. and astonishingly only two officers are assigned to o...

Ability to handle them. this forced death row to expand into three additional cell blocks, never designed for such violent inmates. >> okay. we have one escort coming through. >> having worked at san quentin for 25 years, warden jeanne woodford understands the challenges that confront death row. >> as the number of condemned come in, it's just created a situation with this physical plant, with the open cell fronts, their ability to communicate with each other and pass on gang information just makes it very difficult to manage that population. >> the most sadistic death row inmates are isolated...

California's most restrictive cell blocks. they're known as security housing units or the shu. one is located at pelican bay. >> many of them are in here indeterminately. they'll never leave shu until a committee decides they are not a part of a gang anymore. >> this officer works at the facility. he told us a simple lapse on his part could result in gang warfare. >> if i were to pop two doors at the same time and they were, the mexican-american from los angeles and a mexican-american from sacramento, the odds are very, very good they would immediately commence to fight because that is expecte...

At its best, this is an inefficient design. officers are always having to climb stairs. >> where are the elevators? >> we're the elevators. a human elevator. >> but at its worst, the design of san quentin's cell blocks expose officers to inmate assault. >> with the age of the building, the way it's set up, almost anything you do, you're in direct contact with the inmates. >> hey how are you doing? >> when it's time for the inmates to go to the showers or the dining hall, an entire tier is released simultaneously. and astonishingly only two officers are assigned to orchestrate it. >> fifth tier...

I'd rather be stabbed than to be gassed like i was back in '92. >> incredible as it may seem, officers at san quentin say that there's an attempted assault on their lives almost every day. >> they look for vulnerable spots. they look for times when you do let your guard down. >> this is death row. in fact, this is california's only male death row where the method of execution is lethal injection. this is where you'll find such vicious killers as richard ramirez, the so-called night stalker, and richard allen davis, the killer of polly klaas. today, the condemned population has grown to a stagg...