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Want to opt out of the gang life divulge everything they know to the prison authorities, they then get the protection of being put away from the prison population. >> you give up information on the organization and other individuals involved but they're trying to build up some credibility with you, are you being honest with us? or are you trying to be a sleeper so you can get out there and stab one of these people who has disassociated themselves from these gangs. >> for a gang member, it's probably one of the toughest decisions they'll ever make in their life. >> it's easy to get into the gan...

>> many of them still were a little bit uncomfortable with that idea, especially uncomfortable about having to give over their protection now, completely to the prison authorities. they were not able any more to rely on their gang for protection. >> do i feel safe? you never can feel safe in a prison environment. i don't depend on prison administration to protect me. yeah, they're going to take steps to sure we're secure. but at the same time i'm going to fall back on what i learned in prison to make it in here. >> in some ways you feel like you hung up your balls. now you have to rely on the ...

Want to opt out of the gang life divulge everything they know to the prison authorities, they then get the protection of being put away from the prison population. >> they're trying to build up some credibility with you, are you being honest with them? or are you trying to be a sleeper so you can get out there and stab one of these people who has disassociated themselves from these gangs. >> for a gang member, it's probably one of the toughest decisions they'll ever make in their life. >> it's easy to get into the gang and start doing stuff with the gang. to stipulate away from it, other gang ...

Thing and whack the guy, i would be whacked. so i started seeing that they asked people to do stuff that they wouldn't do themselves, and they're playing people as a puppet and that's what basically they are, puppet masters. i'm not a puppet. >> one of the things i noticed in the transitional housing unit, there's a real mix of prisoners, people that previously on the page yard would have been trying to kill each other. now we're all mixing -- there were books, counselling sessions, a much less tense atmosphere from the rest of the prison. the irony, though, is that some of them still carry th...

>> some prison authorities see all this added muscle as a potential security threat, but others see benefits to having weights on the yard. >> i think the important thing for inmates is to keep them occupied. that's what we try to do here at the institution. >> john ault was warden at anamosa state penitentiary at the time we shot there. >> any time you can have inmates participate in some type of meaningful activity it makes their time easier and staff's time much easier. i would much rather have them participate in something positive than talking about how to do a better armed robbery or plo...