I Watch Documentaries

Did anyone here see Behind Bars: produced by Louis Theroux for the BBC? it's about one of America's most notorious prisons, San Quentin. Most of the men he spoke to there were "lifers" who did not get into trouble overnight. Frequently they had a long rap- sheet of petty crime and when they faced a charge for something serious the court simply did not believe them. Spending a life locked down behind those bars looks fairly gruesome to me but most of the inmates carry on like it is no big deal; a holiday. Who do they think they are kidding? I guess places like this are necessary. What else can you do with a murderer a rapist or a paedophile? And many of them reoffend while inside against other prisoners. While obviously far from perfect many of them claimed to be not guilty of the major crime that earned a sentence longer than their life expectancy. Some of them have been in and out of institutions since age 11. I could not help feeling that a lot of them were born criminals because of their circumstances without any real choice in the matter.