National Geographic Channel's "Hard Time" is a Rude Awakening

When we used to watch HBO's "Oz" it was about prison and the classifications and ethnicities of prisoners and how they developed their own political systems within the prison walls. How these factions treated each other and treated the people who ran the system was the basis of this acclaimed series. Knowing that the stories were based on facts with some fiction added in, it certainly was a shock to the system of someone who never experienced something so horrendous or even knew someone who did. Needless to say, we watched it every week for its shock value and could not imagine what it must be like to be incarcerated in such conditions.

The Georgia Penal System is quite a bit different from Oz as the team from National Geographic Channel found out. In one episode there is a group of juveniles who are attending Burruss Correctional Training Center is far from "juvy" that these youngsters were expecting. Many for the first time in their lives are experiencing discipline. They are treated like Marines with the same boot camp mentality, only they get no leave time. Many of these kids are covered with gang tattoos and lose their swagger quickly after their haircut and issuance of a new uniform with different gang colors; all in the hope that they change their ways and never wind up in Georgia's stricter enforcement penitentiaries.

Another episode is devoted to the escape of two prisoners who were relatively good prisoners of Hays State Prison. Both were in prison for armed robbery, were dangerous and one had previously escaped from another prison. As a result of their escape; the prison took on a tougher policy and a new warden with staff to enforce this policy.

The surprise shakedowns that have been taken place by corrections officers and a tactical squad that carry pepper guns and look like the Special Forces as they search for weapons, cell phones, drugs, moonshine and any other contraband that prisoners are forbidden to possess.

The Georgia penal system has about 55,000 prisoners in various facilities and about 4,000 on death row. Georgia executes prisoners by lethal injection.

Another aspect of this system is examined by the prison guards and how their lives are affected by the treatment they receive by prisoners. One of the new guards told NatGeo that he had graduated seven months prior to the interview and of the five new guards that were hired with him; there were only three left and he was on the fence about staying there because of an incident with a prisoner that keeps him up nights wondering if he could have been killed.

Source:

http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/series/hard-time/all/Overview