Page 29 - Exercise Yard News Today : Breaking News, Live Updates & Top Stories | Vimarsana

That's the power of german engineering. ♪ ♪ back to you. when an inmate arrives at san quentin, he quickly learns that he needs to find a gang or a group with whom he can affiliate himself. even if he is not a gang banger on the outside, not belonging means going it alone. and, more importantly, a serious loss of protection. on the exercise yard, there are no bars keeping rival gangs apart, only a desire to carve out their own place in the sun.

In that exercise yard. because it was literally like a cage. there was nowhere for you to go. and if you really wanted to take someone out, that was the place to do it. it's literally -- like the most extreme ultimate fighting thing you would see. >> correctional officers showed our cameras how they quell the violence with an arsenal of their own. one that includes nonlethal and lethal weaponry. >> get down! get down! >> the first rounds we fire are wood blocks. hopefully the hurt will make them stop. if we really have to escalate with our nonlethal options, we use what's called a scat round. ...

>> what you saw here today was actually a battery. they were stomping his head. he was pretty messed up. >> the inmate who was attacked survived because of a quick response by staff on the yard. his assailants were sentenced to six months in fulsom's administration segregation unit. some of the most violent gang attacks have taken place here at california state prison corcoran's security housing unit, or shu. we visited the shu's now vacant exercise yard, which has been the scene of some of the prison's most brutal violence. ♪ >> i can see why fights went on

Because this is an old facility. this is not electric-powered doors. it's all key. and we're walking these tiers with hundreds of inmates every day, and these officers are face to face with these inmates. >> inmates can change just like that. and so you can't let your guard down. >> warden diana butler knows the importance of communicating with inmates. she's only 1 of 11 female wardens in california, and with 20 years of service, she knows what to look for. >> one thing you develop when you work here is how to read the inmates. if you go on to an exercise yard, a lot of times they will have m...

That's why there's the investigative services unit. sort of a police department within a police department. officer juan berrago and his team investigate prison gang activity, inmate squabbles and homicides. and to keep all those things from getting out of hand, he's constantly looking for signs of trouble. >> they'll use toothpaste. they'll use any type of ceramic putty or cement, anything that's in the institution to conceal things or sometimes even hidden compartments. >> when inmates are released to the exercise yard, they never know if officer berrago was looking in their cell. when they ...