Original subtitles

>> NARRATOR: They hold America's

most dangerous criminals...

>> BOB HOOD: They killed

officers, they killed

other inmates.

You're going to the worst

of the worst.

>> NARRATOR: Prisons so

undercover...

>> AHILAN ARULANANTHAM:

Thousands of people have no idea

that they are walking on top

of a federal prison.

>> NARRATOR: So controversial...

>> MANCOW MULLER: If Americans

rose up, they have the camps

ready for us, they have

the prisons ready for us.

>> NARRATOR: And so dangerous...

>> WILL POTTER: People have

absolutely no idea these places

exist on American soil

in our hometowns.

>> NARRATOR: ...that the details

of how they operate must be

locked... up... tight.

>> ERIC HICKEY: Once you go

behind closed doors, no one

knows what happens to you.

>> NARRATOR: But just what goes

on behind the stone walls and

iron bars that the public

doesn't know?

And are these facilities really

hiding deep, dark secrets?

>> LAURA SULLIVAN: The public

has really very little idea

of what's happening behind

the walls of America's prisons.

>> NARRATOR: There are those

who believe in the existence

of a book.

A book that contains the most

highly guarded secrets of the

United States of America.

A book... whose very existence

is known to only a select few.

But if such a book exists,

what would it contain?

Secret locations?

Secret methods?

Secret agendas?

Does there really exist

America's Book of Secrets?

>> NARRATOR: Guantanamo Bay

Detention Camp on the southern

coast of Cuba,

700 miles from

the United States.

Built in 2002, the American

military prison also known as

"Gitmo," has detained nearly 800

alleged terrorists.

This notorious site has made

national headlines for its

classified operations and the

dangerous criminals it holds.

But what many Americans may not

realize is that there are

other prisons...

prisons located on U.S. soil

that harbor government secrets

and contain criminals

just as terrifying as those

in Guantanamo.

>> DAVID FATHI: The very most

secret prisons, I-I would say,

are super-high security,

supermax prisons;

the prisons where the prisoners

are in their cells locked behind

a solid steel door for 23

or 24 hours a day.

Those are the most out-of-sight

parts of our criminal

justice system.

>> NARRATOR: Florence, Colorado.

Hidden amidst the scenic Rocky

Mountains lies the $60-million

Administrative Maximum

Facility, or ADX.

Built in 1994, many believe the

so-called "Supermax" is the most

secure prison in

the United States...

and possibly even the world.

>> HOOD: There's only been three

supermax prisons in history,

federal supermax prisons:

Alcatraz, Marion, Illinois,

and now the current one.

>> TRACY HARMON: I've worked the

prison beat for 23 years,

and Supermax is by far the most

elite of the prisons.

It really is very secretive.

It's been called the "Harvard

of prisons."

>> HOOD: The inmates that are at

the current Supermax facility,

they killed officers,

they killed other inmates.

They're going to the worst

of the worst.

Out of the 218,000 to 219,000

thousand inmates in the federal

system, the Supermax can only

hold 490.

It's not even full.

You have to earn the right.

>> ERIC HICKEY: Inmates consider

themselves to be very

important people,

and they've earned this.

It's like a status symbol

for them.

Being in a supermax prison

makes them feel very special

in a way.

>> NARRATOR: The Supermax-- just

over 100 miles south of Denver--

is often also referred to as

a "Clean Version of Hell" and

the "Alcatraz of the Rockies."

>> HOOD: As you get closer to

the prison, you realize there's

six gun towers, an abundance of

razor wire, mobile patrols,

armed officers in those vehicles

driving around.

Let's be candid here.

It's the most secure facility

in the United States.

>> NARRATOR: Prisoners at the

Supermax are so high-profile and

so dangerous, that their

transportation into the facility

warrants extra measures to

ensure they do not escape.

>> HOOD: During those

transports, it could be

everything from a Black Hawk

helicopter to chartered planes.

They're in all kinds of

shackles, leg irons,

and belly chains.

Sometimes electronic devices, so

if they move and try to escape,

you can provide them a charge.

I can't tell you the specifics

about how many people

are supervising those moves,

but they're high-level.

>> TRACY HARMON: There are

helicopter-deterrent systems.

If you tried to fly over with

a helicopter to extract someone

from the little yard that they

have in the center of the

prison, there are several layers

of cables that crisscross over

the yard.

So nothing's getting out,

nothing's getting in.

>> NARRATOR: According to

insiders, the technology at the

Supermax surpasses that of any

federal prison before it,

making any attempt to escape

futile.

>> HARMON: There are motion

sensors in the floor.

If anyone managed to work their

way into the piping or the ducts

in the building, a motion sensor

would set off an alarm and the

officers would know exactly

where this was happening.

The other thing about Supermax

is the master control system is

located where the inmates would

never be able to get to it.

But just in case, there is an

alarm they can set off that will

shut down the master control and

it's taken over at a remote

location very far away

from the prison.

>> NARRATOR: Notorious

terrorists such as Ramzi Yousef,

Richard Reid,

Ted Kaczynski,

and Eric Rudolph,

call the Supermax home.

>> HOOD: If you look down the

typical cell block, or the

"range" we call them, you would

see Sammy "The Bull" Gravano,

hit man for the mafia, sitting

next door to a person like

Robert Hansen, a spy, adjacent

to, at one time, Timothy McVeigh

before his execution.

>> NARRATOR: The cost of housing

inmates in solitary confinement

is estimated to be

$75,000 dollars per inmate

per year.

But don't let that price

fool you.

Although the Supermax may appear

to be a high-tech facility,

this is no luxury hotel.

>> HOOD: There's nothing fancy.

They have a cement bed with a

very small mattress on it.

There's a desk, but it's a solid

cement desk.

Even the chair is solid cement.

They have a window, but the

difference is, a four-inch slit

window as you're peeking out...

you're not looking at the

Rockies, you're simply looking

at, perhaps, the backside of

another building.

What we give the inmates beyond

that: the basics of toothpaste,

toothbrush, a couple pairs of

the underwear and the uniform.

>> NARRATOR: But believe it or

not, the Supermax is more than

a holding pen for the some of

the world's most notorious

criminal minds.

It also serves another, more

secret function.

One that is considered crucial

to America's national security.

>> HOOD: The average prison in

the United States is there to

contain and be a deterrent to

others.

The Supermax has another mission

that's not often discussed.

We're holding people that have

really impacted our lives.

So there's intelligence

gathering.

We're involved with the Joint

Terrorist Task Force.

We're involved with national

security agencies: FBI, Secret

Service, the whole nine yards,

because some inmates would love

to still run the world from

inside the prison, so our job is

to minimize that, if not just

totally stop it.

We're also listening to the

conversations, we listen live

time.

We record and the reason being

we don't want some plot to occur

out in the world and then we go

back and do a postmortem.

That's a reactive response.

The intention of the Supermax is

to be so proactive that we're

connecting the dots.

Terrorism's here to stay, but

there might be a point in time

we're able to say, here's some

lessons learned from people

within the Supermax that maybe

did save that building or that

bridge or that tunnel.

They're the type of things I

couldn't discuss, but I could

tell you there's a lot of neat

information that comes from the

Supermax.

>> NARRATOR: While the Supermax

holds some of the most savage

criminals in the United States,

there are still other maximum

security prisons, prisons that

hold inmates considered so

dangerous that their identities

are kept secret... even from

their fellow inmates.

>> NARRATOR: Butner, North

Carolina.

May 2008.

In the darkness of pre-dawn

hours at the Federal

Correctional Institution, guards

enter inmate Andrew Stepanian's

cell.

Without any explanation, they

shackle the 29-year-old and

remove him from the facility.

>> ANDREW STEPANIAN: They put,

like, a leather, big, thick,

weight-lifter-style belt around

my waist with a ring.

They put my handcuffs through

the ring and then around this

ring, they put a black box with

another key and-and padlock.

They then cuffed my feet

together.

So I was really pretty much

incapacitated.

>> NARRATOR: Within hours,

Stepanian was covertly

transported to a private plane

with 30 other inmates.

But why?

Just what did this prisoner do

to warrant such an unusual and

secret transfer?

>> STEPANIAN: I was sentenced

to 36 months in Federal Prison,

because I violated a law called

the Animal Enterprise Protection

Act of 1992.

(protestors chanting)

I caused more than $10,000 in

financial damages to businesses

that used animals for research.

I was designated as a terrorist

in the Federal Bureau of

Prisons.

>> NARRATOR: But why was Andrew

Stepanian-- who had served most

of his term at a

medium security prison--

suddenly moved in the early

morning hours to a place known

as a CMU, or Communication

Management Unit, a prison where

some of the country's greatest

security threats are kept under

constant surveillance?

>> FATHI: The Communications

Management Units, or CMUs, are

two units that the federal

prison system established in

2006 and 2007.

There's one at the federal

prison in Terre Haute, Indiana

and another at the prison in

Marion, Illinois.

They exist to very radically

restrict any kind of

communication between prisoners

and the outside world.

>> STEPANIAN: They were

developed secretively by the

former Director of the Bureau of

Prisons, named Harley Lappin.

Harley Lappin introduced, uh,

in about 2004, a plan to

Congress to develop something

called the CTU, Counter

Terrorism Unit.

>> CONGRESSMAN: Objection!

A motion to reconsider is laid

upon the table.

>> STEPANIAN: Both Democrats and

Republicans struck it down,

because it kind of smacked of

racial and ethnic

discrimination.

>> NARRATOR: In spite of the

bi-partisan objections, the

Federal Bureau of Prisons opened

these CMUs and started filling

them.

But why?

Were the prisons created to

serve another, more secret

government agenda?

>> WILL POTTER: Within those

prison yards and prison walls,

you have a separate unit for

people that the government

describes as having, quote,

"inspirational significance."

I would argue that's a euphemism

for political prisoners.

>> NARRATOR: But with only five

and a half months remaining in

his sentence, why was a

relatively harmless prisoner

like Andrew Stepanian

transferred to such a maximum

security facility and placed in

the company of convicted

terrorists?

>> FATHI: What's very concerning

about the CMUs is that over...

over two-thirds of the prisoner

population are Arab or Muslim

prisoners.

Despite the fact that Arabs and

Muslims are a tiny fraction of

the entire U.S. prison

population.

So it certainly raises, uh, the

possibility that people are

being sent there, uh, for

discriminatory reasons.

>> DANIEL VASQUEZ: All prisons

have missions.

The Communication Management

Unit is designed to house

individuals that are terrorists

and are a threat to our

communities and that's their

mission.

The federal government began to

see continued communication with

other terrorist links and

decided to concentrate these

individuals into a CMU.

>> NARRATOR: Confused and

frightened, inmate Andrew

Stepanian wondered just why he

had been sent to a prison where

the majority of prisoners were

Muslim and were involved in

criminal acts of terror on a far

greater scale than his own.

And then, one day, Stepanian

learned he was being used as

what's called a "balancer."

>> STEPANIAN: I first heard the

term "balancer" from a guard.

While I was doing my laundry,

a guard stopped next to the

washing machine, and he said,

"Kid, I want you to keep your

head up.

You're only here for balance."

He says, "You're not like the

rest of these Muslim guys.

You're only here for balance.

You're gonna go home soon

enough."

If that was truthful, if that

guard was privy to information

that I was just there to offset

the racial disparity, um, that

is somewhat eye-opening.

VASQUEZ: Is it politically

correct?

Probably not.

Is it receiving a lot of legal

scrutiny?

Yes, it is.

So, I think they began to

identify terrorists that have

been convicted in the United

States.

They're there to take the

pressure of litigation off by

bringing in those other

individuals that are not Muslim

that seemed to be balancing that

population.

>> POTTER: There's been national

discussion about places like

Guantanamo Bay, but most people

have absolutely no idea

that these places exist on

American soil, in our hometowns.

They're prisons within prisons

that are some ways even worse

than the most extreme prison

units in the country.

>> NARRATOR: Does the United

States government really operate

secret terrorist prisons?

Prisons that serve as "American

Gitmos," and whose populations

are overwhelmingly Muslim?

And are non-Muslims like Andrew

Stepanian really used as

so-called "balancers" in an

effort to avoid charges of

racism and racial profiling on

the part of the government?

Men like Andrew Stepanian

believe the answer is yes.

But there are also those who

believe there is yet

another, perhaps more shocking

agenda involving America's

prisons.

One that involves trading human

beings for cold, hard cash.

>> NARRATOR: Wilkes-Barre,

Pennsylvania. 2003.

At the Luzerne County

Courthouse, 17-year-old Edward

Kenzakoski, stands before Judge

Mark Ciavarella Jr., accused of

possession of marijuana

that was not even his.

In just minutes, Kenzakoski is

shackled and sentenced to 30

days in a youth jail and four

months of boot camp.

>> ALEX FRIEDMANN: You have kids

who were literally writing on

their desks or posting inane

comments on Facebook, and they

were putting them in these

secure juvenile facilities.

And that can have a-a

devastating impact on a child's

life, to lock them up like a

hardened criminal.

>> NARRATOR: In 2008, the

Federal Bureau of Investigation

discovered that Judge

Ciavarella, and fellow Judge

Michael Conohan, had been hiding

a secret for years.

>> FATHI: A juvenile court

judge was actually accepting

money from private prison

operators and then sentencing

children who came before him

in his courtroom to be

incarcerated in those prisons.

>> NARRATOR: In total, the

judges received over $2 million

in kickbacks from the builders

and developers of two

for-profit juvenile detention

centers.

The unimaginable crime rocked

the nation and was coined

"the Kids for Cash scandal."

>> HICKEY: They're marked for

life and they're traumatized for

life because a judge wanted to

make a little extra money.

>> NARRATOR: In June 2010,

former prisoner Edward

Kenzakoski committed suicide.

Friends and family say it was

the life-altering experiences in

juvenile detention that haunted

him, and ultimately sent him

to his grave.

On August 11, 2011, Judge Mark

Ciavarella was sentenced to 28

years in jail for 12 counts that

included racketeering and

conspiracy.

>> My kid's not here, he's dead!

Because of him!

Do you remember me?

Do you remember me?

Do you remember my son?

An all-star wrestler, he's gone!

He shot himself in the heart.

You scumbag!

>> NARRATOR: On September 23,

2011, Judge Michael Conohan was

sentenced to 17 and a half years

in federal prison after he also

pled guilty to racketeering and

conspiracy.

But was this Kids for Cash

scandal an isolated incident?

Or might it be just the tip of

the iceberg, suggesting even

more profitable, secret prison

agendas?

August 14, 2013.

The Economist reports that the

United States, a country made

up of only five percent of the

global population, actually

imprisons 25% of the world's

inmates.

And shockingly, about one in

every 107 Americans

is incarcerated.

>> ALEX JONES: The prison

population in the United States

has surged 30% in the last

decade alone.

The United States has the

largest prison population in the

world, more than China that has

over a billion people.

>> NARRATOR: But why are there

so many people incarcerated in

the United States?

>> VASQUEZ: Members of the

legislature make themselves look

like they were tough on crime

for their constituents so they

started increasing sentences for

various crimes.

Then we invented the three

strike law.

The war on drugs increased the

federal prison population

tremendously.

>> NARRATOR: Some suggest that

the privatization of prisons is

also one of the driving forces

behind the staggering rise in

incarceration rates in the

United States.

>> VASQUEZ: The private prisons

began I guess maybe 30, 40 years

ago.

Corrections Corporation of

America started with just a

handful of people that believed

that they could make some money

when incarcerating people in-in

a private setting, and they

started small with city jails

and county jails and they grew

and grew and grew.

>> FRIEDMANN: Corrections

Corporation of America, or CCA

is the nation's largest

for-profit prison company.

They operate over 60

correctional facilities

nationwide.

They have about, uh, 90,000

correctional bed space.

And they took in around $1.7

billion in gross revenue

last year.

In the public sector prisons,

you're basically a number.

In the private prisons, you're a

number with a dollar sign in

front of it.

>> MANCOW MULLER: Our government

has made deals with the private

corporations that own these

prisons they have to be stocked

at least 90%.

They have to keep the beds full.

We're inventory.

And they got to keep the shelves

stocked.

>> FRIEDMANN: The Associated

Press in 2012 reported that the

three top private prison

companies CCA, Geo Group, and

MTC had spent around $45

million over a 10-year period in

campaign donations and lobbying

expenses alone.

We're talking some serious

money.

>> FATHI: Nobody makes campaign

contributions expecting nothing

in return.

>> NARRATOR: With the exchange

of campaign contributions for

legislative promises, can

citizens ever be sure prisons

are operating in the best

interest of the public?

>> FRIEDMANN: 95% of all

prisoners will one day get out.

These prisoners who are

incarcerated in these for-profit

prisons, which have no incentive

to rehabilitate anyone because

if prisoners don't come back,

well, that's just another dollar

not in their pocket.

When they get out, they tend

to commit more crimes.

That's what the research shows.

That is really the danger

to the public.

>> NARRATOR: But while some may

see America's "prisons for

profit" system as frightening,

there is another perhaps even

more terrifying concern:

that virtually anyone

can end up behind bars...

and for no reason other than

a case of mistaken identity.

>> NARRATOR: Los Angeles,

California, June 5, 2007.

Hector Veloz, a United States

citizen and lifelong resident

of California, is preparing for

his release from a state prison

after serving six months for

receiving stolen property.

But just as he thinks he is

being freed, Veloz is told that

he will not be going home

as planned.

>> HECTOR VELOZ: As we were

being processed for release,

uh, myself and probably

about four other inmates were

held back...

only to be told that I was going

to be processed for deportation.

It's the greatest insult when

someone tells you to your face

that you're not an American

citizen.

>> NARRATOR: Veloz says he was

then transferred to an unmarked

processing site in Bakersfield,

California run by Immigration

and Customs Enforcement, or ICE,

and the Department of Homeland

Security.

>> VELOZ: You're at a transfer

facility for ICE.

It just looks like

a building, a station.

There's no formal signs as

you're walking in or anything

that tell you you're actually

in care or custody of ICE

officials.

>> NARRATOR: According to other

insiders, the secret location is

just one of more than 180 sites

known as "field offices" or

"processing facilities" being

hidden from the American public.

>> ARULANANTHAM: We're right in

downtown Los Angeles.

Behind me is the Federal

Building, and this is the front

entrance, but you'd never know

that underneath it is

a hidden prison.

So when someone's standing in

the Federal Building, or even on

the sidewalk, there are

literally underneath your feet

people in a prison being held by

the Department of Homeland

Security.

>> NARRATOR: Is the U.S.

government really detaining

immigrants-- even American

citizens-- and hiding them in

plain sight?

>> ARULANANTHAM: Seeing this

driveway here, and it being

LA, you'd think it was a

parking lot, uh, but actually if

you go down there, that is the

entrance into an underground

detention center where the

Department of Homeland Security,

imprisons immigrants while it

processes them to be sent to

other locations for detention.

>> NARRATOR: Although covert

processing centers are meant for

short-term stays,

anywhere from 12 to 24 hours,

there are those who claim

these centers actually detain

people for days, weeks,

and even months at a time.

>> ARULANANTHAM: There were

people who spent literally

several weeks without

brushing their teeth, changing

their clothing, showering,

without being able to make

a phone call.

And when you have 50 people

using one or two toilets, you

can imagine what that's like.

>> NARRATOR: After two days

spent in a holding cell, Hector

Veloz says he was flown to Eloy,

Arizona and locked up in an

ICE detention facility.

There, he spent two weeks behind

bars before he could even see

a judge to plea for his freedom.

>> VELOZ: I submit my parents'

birth certificates and my birth

certificates, and I think, with

all the birth certificates, it

should pretty much clear it up.

And it doesn't.

>>> VASQUEZ: Some people spend

years and years in prison,

and you hear those stories

all the time: mistaken identity,

bad witnesses.

Those things happen,

and it take years to unravel,

so you know it happens.

The system will make mistakes.

>> NARRATOR: Even after Veloz

submitted his birth certificate,

legal briefs he prepared

himself,

and a court appearance by his

father, a decorated Vietnam War

veteran, it still took 13 months

before he was finally recognized

as a U.S. citizen and set free.

>> MULLER: The government picked

this guy up, put him in jail

for over a year. Sorry.

This doesn't happen in America.

Oh, wait a minute.

Yeah, it does.

I can't imagine what he was

thinking sitting there.

I mean, it's-it's the stuff

of nightmares.

>> NARRATOR: It is estimated

that Veloz's detention cost U.S.

taxpayers tens of thousands of

dollars to house him.

And Veloz is just one of

hundreds of American citizens

wrongfully detained.

Reportedly, there were roughly

800 U.S. citizens

in ICE detention

between 2008 and 2012.

But why?

>> SULLIVAN: Critics believe

that private prison corporations

have been driving the country's

immigration policy.

They believe that they're

lobbying for policies that will

lock up more immigrants.

>> FATHI: About half of all

immigrants who are detained by

the federal government

are housed in private prisons.

>> VELOZ: It makes you wonder:

who's on the payroll,

who's really gaining from this?

I didn't.

>> NARRATOR: But while hundreds

of U.S. citizens are wrongly

detained in federal immigration

facilities, there are those who

believe there now exists a

growing number of other equally

insidious secret prisons,

facilities which appear

to be benign but whose secret

purpose may pose the ultimate

threat to America's freedoms.

>> NARRATOR: New Orleans,

Louisiana, August 29, 2005.

Hurricane Katrina destroys

everything in its path,

including local and state

prisons.

A state of emergency is

declared, which many believe is

a de facto form of martial law.

FEMA, the Federal Emergency

Management Agency, mobilizes

camps for the displaced.

And state and federal

authorities transform a

Greyhound bus station into a

makeshift jail aptly named,

"Camp Greyhound."

>> JOE JOSEPH: We saw Hurricane

Katrina and how many people got

displaced as a result of that.

There's a legitimate need for

the federal government to have a

contingency plan in the event of

a disaster.

>> NARRATOR: Brigantine, New

Jersey.

October 29, 2012.

Hurricane Sandy wipes out

thousands of homes in New York

and New Jersey.

45,000 National Guard and Air

Force personnel are deployed to

over seven states to respond to

the emergency.

As with Katrina, tens of

thousands of residents are left

homeless, and once again, as

they had after Katrina, FEMA

sets up temporary encampments to

house the victims in tents and

trailers.

But although few could argue why

such an extraordinary disaster

should require such an equally

extraordinary response, there

are many who claim these refugee

sites operated more like prisons

than shelters.

And that, they believe, was no

accident.

>> VASQUEZ: They had them

confined, they were feeding

them, they were providing a bed

and an environment to live in.

The camps had to have security.

You're taking in thousands of

people and-and you don't know

anything about those

individuals.

Some could be criminals.

They've committed murderers,

they're doing drugs, so you have

to provide that balance of

security, because it's an

unknown.

>> MULLER: These FEMA camps that

spring up after something like a

hurricane, right?

You've lost everything and when

you go to a FEMA camp, they tell

you, "You're not allowed to talk

the media, did you know that?"

Why?

>> JOSEPH: While it's

responsible for government to

provide for catastrophe response

or for a national emergency, the

problem is the characteristics

of a FEMA camp is that the

fences have razor wire or barbed

wire that's pointing inward.

Meaning that it's meant to keep

people in, not keep people out.

>> NARRATOR: Could the

military-like tactics used in

running FEMA camps really be

serving as a type of dry run?

One that is being orchestrated

to serve another, more secret

agenda?

>> MICHAEL RIVERO: There has

been a long discussion over the

possibility that the U.S.

government is making contingency

plans to deal with a mass civil

uprising.

And it centers on certain

facilities which are in

existence, which are empty and

which appear to be very rapidly

convertible to hold large

numbers of human beings.

>> JONES: The government doesn't

call them FEMA camps.

They call them emergency

centers.

They call it the Civilian Inmate

Labor Camp Program.

They call it Continuity of

Government Emergency Relocation

Centers.

>> NARRATOR: Some fear that FEMA

camps could signal a return to

a troubling period of American

history when Japanese-American

citizens were rounded up, forced

to leave their homes and

businesses and placed in

detention camps during World

War II.

>> JOSEPH: You can't rule out

the fact that internment camps

could rear their ugly head in

the United States again.

And I say again.

They've happened before, it

could happen again.

>> JONES: They plan to round

people up the exact same way.

They got a list of where you

work, where you go to school,

what you do.

>> NARRATOR: Is the U.S.

government really trying to

prepare its citizens for a

future where they would be

rounded up and placed in

detention facilities where their

individual rights and freedoms

would be compromised?

And all in the name of the

common good?

Perhaps.

But such an outrageous notion

begins to take on an eerie

legitimacy when confronted with

the fact that hundreds of

average U.S. citizens are

currently serving prison time,

and for nothing more serious

than a clerical error.

>> NARRATOR: Herrin, Illinois.

Cancer survivor Lisa Lindsay is

arrested and jailed for failing

to pay a $280 medical bill.

But according to Lindsay, the

bill is not hers.

In fact, her name was

erroneously attached to the debt

by a collection agency.

Lindsay ends up paying $600 to

settle the mistaken charges, and

to get out of what some call a

"debtor's prison."

>> FATHI: Debtor's prison refers

to the practice of jailing a

person because he or she can't

afford, uh, to pay a fine.

Might be a very small fine.

>> SULLIVAN: There are thousands

of inmates in jails and in

prisons across this country that

are there because they can't

afford to pay their bills.

>> FATHI: The Supreme Court

ruled more than 30 years ago

that it's unconstitutional to

jail someone for failure to pay

a fine unless the court

specifically finds the person

could pay but is choosing not

to.

In other words, you're not

supposed to be jailed just

because you're poor.

>> NARRATOR: Debtor's prisons

were outlawed in the United

States nearly 200 years ago.

So how could they possibly exist

today?

>> FATHI: People being jailed

for debt tends to happen in

municipal courts in cases where

people don't have a lawyer.

And so it sort of flies under

the radar.

And it's a population that's by

definition poor, uh, doesn't

have political power, doesn't

have influence.

Doesn't get a lot of media

attention.

>> HICKEY: A person who's

arrested for having too many

speeding tickets and hasn't paid

them and then is put into a jail

and put into a cell with a

couple of rapists, the trauma

can be extremely severe and can

be very terrorizing to a person.

But sometimes in jails, because

of overcrowding, they'll put

them in with people who have

violent tendencies.

And so we have seen people who

have been assaulted.

>> NARRATOR: Could it really be

that easy for people to be

locked up due to clerical errors

or simply a few missed payments?

And if this can happen to any

American, should the public pay

closer attention to how our

prison system operates and what

secrets it may be hiding?

>> HICKEY: Everyone wants to see

what's happening within those

institutions.

And it's like they want to get

to the edge and look over the

cliff and see what's in there,

but they don't want to really

jump.

Because once you go behind

closed doors, no one knows what

happens to you.

>> NARRATOR: Citizens jailed for

minor debt and mistaken

identity, juveniles locked away

for years at a time,

and Americans wrongfully

imprisoned for alleged

immigration violations.

Is the American prison system

expanding so much that it could

soon be detaining citizens for

any reason at all?

And all in the name of national

security?

>> JOSEPH: It's conditioning.

That's exactly what it's for.

But what are they conditioning

us for?

Is it economic?

Could it be some sort of natural

disaster, an earthquake?

It could be any one of those

things, but you can say beyond

the shadow of a doubt that

they're preparing for something.

>> MULLER: I've been in some of

the protests with the cops

dressed up like storm troopers

out of Star Wars.

If Americans rose up, they have

the camps ready for us.

They have the prisons ready for

us.

These are warehouses for

humanity.

These are warehouses for the

American public.

>> SULLIVAN: The public has

really very little idea of

what's happening behind the

walls of America's prisons.

>> JONES: No one can deny it,

the land of the free, the home

of the brave has the largest

prison population in the world

and it's only growing.

>> FATHI: Most people think of

prisoners as the other.

The reality is, with the largest

prison population in the world,

a lot of Americans are going to

end up in prison, or at least in

jail, at some point in their

lives.

It might be you.

It might be your son or

daughter.

It might be a friend.

We should all care what happens

in prisons, because that could

be you or me or any of us.

>> NARRATOR: Should all U.S.

citizens, even the law-abiding,

be concerned about America's

so-called "secret prisons"?

There are those who believe the

answer is a profound "Yes."

But one thing is certain.

Until the nation knows the truth

about its prisons, thousands of

Americans will continue asking

questions and fearing the

unknown, while others will

simply turn their heads and say,

"It can't happen here."

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