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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 this weight of being snitches, of having divulged information to the prison authorities. >> i just seen a lot of the people that were involv...

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 administration to handle things in a way you learned to handle things. now i play...

>> so that's why we're out here trying to improvise and stuff. you know, lifting garbage cans and things like that. it took a good wholesome thing from us. it's like, something that was filling people's time and taking away negative energy. took those out. >> 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 alt was warden at the anamosa state penitentiary at the time we shot there. ...

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 this weight of being snitches, of having divulg...

>> 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 ...