Transcript for Solitary Confinement: No Way Out of the Monster FactoryWell, tonight, across this country, some 80,000 prisoners are locked in solitary confinement. Prison reformers pushed it as a humane alternative to hanging, almost 200 years ago. But some modern... See More Well, tonight, across this country, some 80,000 prisoners are locked in solitary confinement. Prison reformers pushed it as a humane alternative to hanging, almost 200 years ago. But some modern reformers think it is pure torture. Practice has led to congressional hearings, u. N. Reports, inmate hunger strikes. To better understand the toll of forced solitude, abc's dan harris volunteered to spend 48 hours in the hole. Reporter: I'm cuffed and stuffed in the back of a sheriff's vehicle. Right in front of you. Turn around, put your hands -- Reporter: This is everybody's worst nightmare. Come on this way, please. Reporter: The further we get into this, the more real it feels. Look up at the camera, please. Everything you need for your spell upstairs. Shoes, a blanket. Reporter: I am about to enter what some have called a monster ory. We arrive at what will be my new home. It's 7 by 12 feet, all concrete and metal. I am in solitary confinement. Everybody agrees criminals should be punished, but critics say solitary is legalized torture. That makes inmates more dangerous when they get out and can be three times as expensive as regular inmate housing. But corrections officials insist it is a necessary tool to control a dangerous population. So, to get a sense of what it's really like, we were granted an extraordinary inside look. Officials at the downdown denver detention center agreed to make me an inmate for 48 hours. Locked up, alone, in a room with only a camera to talk to. Tell you what, when that door closes and you're in here, by yourself? It is very lonely feeling. Pretty soon, the screaming starts. I'm going crazy in here! They're leaving me locked in a room for 23 hours a day! Reporter: While the commotion is jarring to me -- making sure everybody's okay and making sure everyone has regular breathing going on, no one's trying to hurt themselves. Reporter: It is nothing new at all for guards like thomas acey, who works the overnight shift. He makes his rounds every half hour. This is my pod. I listen to everything that goes on in here, just to have a good feeling on what's going on. You hear it all. Reporter: As night falls and the lights go out, the howling and banging gets more intense. The guy in the cell directly below me is having a meltdown for several hours now, screaming, banging on the door of his cell. My neighbor downstairs also in solitary has taken off his clothes, he's urinated all over the floor and ripped up pages of the bible and slipped them under his cell door. For their own safety and the safety of the inmates, the guards don't go into the cell unless the inmate is actually hurting himself. You can't help but wonder how they're feeling. You have to take that into consideration, too. When someone is acting out, you have to put yourself in their shoes. After a couple of months of solitary confinement, your mind starts playing tricks on you. Reporter: Studying show the human brain actually sloems down after just a week in solitary and that lengthy sentences can do damage similar to head trauma. We are social animals. Take away human interaction and inmates often become depressed, consumed by irrational anger, violent and suicidal. What's your name? What's your birthday? Reporter: Making matters even more volatile? Many of the inmates who end up in solitary are already mentally ill. And regularly medicated. Back in my cell, surrounded by the sounds of human suffering, with zero privacy, lights streaming in and only a thin blanket to keep me warm, i settle in for a long, restless night. Morning arrives and so does breakfast, through a slot in the door. I got to tell you, it is virtually impossible to get an ininterrupted nights sleep he because there's so much noise. It's hard to figure out what to do with myself. I stare off, brush my teeth, work out. This is my mini jail-issue toothbrush. My liquid toothpaste. This is the sink area. I'm sure the minutes in there seem like hours. Reporter: The guards, who are monitoring my every move say they are surprised by how quickly I've adopted typical inmate behavior. He's been stretching, pacing back and forth. So, kind of typical behavior, actually, of what we see, minus the screaming and the yelling. This is my own solitary. Just playing a game of cards. Reporter: There are basically three kinds of inmates in here. I just did a little sketch of some mountains. That's what I do miss. Reporter: Those that prefer it, which is rare, like herschel franklin, in for first degree assault. I got breakfast in bed, lunch in bed, dinner in bed. I ain't got to worry about other guys with their problems, whatever. I'm just deeming with me. This is no game. This is not a game. Reporter: Then, there are those who are in here for their own protection, like my downstairs neighbor, who is mentally ill. The other type of person who ends up in solitary? How do you plead to the charges? Guilty. Reporter: The rulebreakers, like dylan head, captured here on jail cameras getting into a fight. I'm okay giving him up to 15 days. Reporter: As dylan goes in -- think about it before I get into a fight next time. Reporter: Jail officials invite me for a chat, a welcome relief from my stifling cell. On my way, I step around the pages of the bible that my neighbor ripped up overnight. One of ourorst nightmares would be to be in your situation, where we were locked down like that. Reporter: Really? Yeah. Because we're -- you know, we see this all the time, so -- we understand. This is our way of keeping people safe. Worried about people getting hurt and some of these folks in general population would be a danger to themselves and other inmates. This is the best tool we have. Reporter: Our interview is interrupted by a horrifying noise. What is that? SEE LESS Transcript for Solitary Confinement: A Controversial PunishmentHere on the outside, the common belief is for solitary confinement is only for the most hardened inmates. But not so. In some prisons, contraband will earn a prisoner in the hole and almost all of... See More Here on the outside, the common belief is for solitary confinement is only for the most hardened inmates. But not so. In some prisons, contraband will earn a prisoner in the hole and almost all of these men will be released back into society some day. Studies show they are more likely to reoffend on the outside as a result. We return now to abc's dan harris, almost through his first day of confinement to look for clues as to Reporter: I've now been in solitary for 18 hours. Good morning, guys. Reporter: I'm meeting with jail officials. Feels good to be out of that little cage, I'll tell you that much. When we are loudly interrupted. What is that? It is my neighbor, the mentally ill inmate, breaking down while guards return him to his cell after a court appearance. Jail officials admit, sometimes when they put people in solitary, they just get worse. So, that raises the question about whether maybe -- is there a better way? That's a question that we all are asking and I don't know what the answer is. Reporter: While here at this jail, most inmates are not in solitary for more than 60 days, in some prisons, inmates can be in for years, decades, even. When I'm returned to my cell, after my meeting with the guards, listen to what one of them tells me. People need to know what goes on here. Thank you. Reporter: Thank you. I'm back in my cell for the rest of this day of tedium, broken up only by barely edible meals. A bologna sandwich, lettuce, couple slices of american cheese, some cookies. I know I only have 18 hours left, but I have a hard time wrapping my head around how I'm going to make it through the sheer density of the boredom that being in solitary entails. In another part of the jail, marcel woods passes the time by writing his mom a letter. I told her when I have trial coming up. Reporter: Marcel has been in and out of jail his entire life. This time, it's theft and assault charges. Hopefully this time I learned my lesson. This isn't the place to be. If you don't have this, then you go stir crazy. Listen to the news, music, sports. Reporter: August rayfield, who swears by his jail-issued transistor radio is in for meth possess possession, stolen checks and domestic violence. We have one of these. Reporter: The other thing keeping him sane, the calendar where he counts down the days. So, 31, 31, 30. And that's what you hear all day. That's what you hear 24/7. No way to live. Don't break the law. Reporter: Back in my cell, the noise has also begun. It's my neighbor downstairs again. As I get ready for sleep, I'm wondering whether I can make it. The guards have told me I can leave at any time if I can't take it anymore and that idea is becoming increasingly tempting. The next morning, I wake up in my tiny cell. Personally, I can smell freedom at this point and I am ready to get out of here. Outside, the deputy makes his time rounds of the morning before his shiftends. He admits looking at the faces of men behind glass every day is not easy psychologically. The night shift is intense. You got to stay awake, you got to -- you got to stay active. Every day is a new story. Reporter: Every inmate gets one free hour outside his cell per day. All right. Shower time. They told me not to interact with any of the inmates. You're going to need your shower shoes, bro. Even when they taunt me. Going to catch gingivitis. I have a prepaid call from an inmate in denver downtown detention center. Reporter: During my free hour, I get a chance to call my wife. In terms of you feeling like you're losing your mind, do you have a sense of what that might be like? Reporter: Yeah, I mean, i haven't felt like I'm losing my mind, but I get a little glimpse of what it must feel like. I know I'm going to get out. Reporter: Coming up, more trouble with my mentally ill neighbor. And, I finally get to meet my fellow inmates and ask them, if you did the crime, shouldn't you do the time? SEE LESS

VALARIE KAUR, DIRECTOR, "THE WORST OF THE WORST": The human costs are staggering. I mean, we do have 2.3 million people incarcerated in this country. That`s more than any other country in the world, disproportionately people of color for non-violent offenses.And to bring it home, you know, I`ve spent the last year working with a team of law students at Yale Law School on super max prisons, on a film called "The Worst of the Worst". And we spent an enormous amount of time with young, former inmates. These are young African-American and Latino kids grew up on the streets of Hartford, or New Britain, got caught up with the wrong crowd, get caught for selling drugs, end up in general population. For those who can`t adjust, they get punished by being sent to super max prison. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.KAUR: And for several of them, I`ve watched them live out the consequences of that psychological damage of being held in solitary confinement, consequences they`ll live out for the rest of their lives. And so, I can`t help but wonder if in the first instance, a judge could assess the entire person in front of them, their particular story, their struggle, their capacities to change rather than giving in to mandatory sentencing, if their futures could be different. HARRIS-PERRY: And would you agree, Judge? I mean, so -- I have a little bit of nervousness about assuming that judges are necessarily better at the use of discretion. But do we end up with a different sort of format of crime and punishment when we have judges rather than prosecutors with the discretion in the system? BENNETT: Well, I think so. I think it`s fairer justice. I`ve sentenced over a thousand people to mandatory minimum sentences. The vast majority in drug cases, the vast majority of which did not deserve a sentence anywhere near the length they do. People don`t understand the incredible length of sentences. And in the Midwest, it`s methamphetamine. To give you an example -- five grams of methamphetamine gets you a five- year mandatory sentence. Fifty grams gets you a 10-year mandatory sentence. And in our district, they`re always charged as a conspiracy. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.BENNETT: So you`re responsible for the reasonably foreseeable conduct and drug quantity of your co-conspirators. So, you could be involved in going to Walmart and getting pseudoephedrine, with a small group of other people to make meth because you`re meth addict and you can easily wind up with a 10-year mandatory minimum. HARRIS-PERRY: And this is part of why we have a growing women`s population, right? So, if you`re the sister or the girlfriend or the mom or whatever, and you`re buying the Claritin that is nonprescription, but you have to go behind the counter to get it and you`ve bought an enormous amount, you could be a conspirator to a meth drug crime.Up next, we`re going to talk about Valarie`s film and issue of life in solitary confinement from the perspective of one man living it.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)UNIDENTIFIED MALE: You can`t talk through the doors, you can`t speak to other inmates, I started talking to the wall, I started seeing stuff, you can hear these voices and you literally hear them. They talk to you and tell you to do things and you go and do them. Not realize that you`re going through this pain. That`s when I start cutting myself, biting myself, and end it all happens because of that cell.HARRIS-PERRY: What you saw was a first-person description of life for a prisoner in solitary confinement. The clip was from an upcoming documentary called "The Worst of the Worst" about Northern, Connecticut`s only super max prison. It was directed by Valarie Kaur, one of my guests today. Imagine being locked up in a small concrete box, about the length and width of a parking space, no contact with another human being, no communication with the outside world, food delivered through a slit in the door for days, weeks, months, sometimes years on end. The confinement inside those four walls giving way to confinement inside the prison of your own mind.That is live more than 20,000 prisoners held in isolation in the United States in any given year. Some of them live this way for more than two decades. And, Valarie, they often live this way not because of the crimes they`ve committed but because of infractions that occur after they`re already in prison. So, this is a secondary level of punishment that occurs. KAUR: That`s right. Meshael (ph), who you just saw, was sentenced to prison for a low-level offense. He got very depressed. He began to cut himself with a razor blade. And rather than being given treatment, he was ultimately sent to Northern as punishment. And while there, his condition got so much worse.What was deeply troubling and surprising about making this film was that when you create an entire institution designed to hold people in solitary, it actually breaks down people`s spirits on both sides of the bars. So, you have people like Meshael who start to hear voices, hallucinations, hurt themselves or others, the United Nations has said that 15 days in solitary is enough to cause irreparable psychological damage. But you also have the correctional officers on the other side, people like Wayne and Pete and Mark who we interviewed who talk about the high rates of alcoholism, post-traumatic stress disorder, of suicide rates.And you begin to understand that solitary is a 360-damage where the inmates lose, the correctional officers lose, the taxpayers lose because it`s incredibly expensive. And we as Americans are faced with a moral crisis.HARRIS-PERRY: Look, as an academic who does psychological research sometimes around public opinion work. One of the things we teach is the Stanford prison studies, right? These are the classic studies where what they did was, you know, took a group of students, divided them randomly, half as prisoners and half as guards. And what we know is that within two weeks, the level of brutality that occurred as a result of purely random assignment to these two positions was so brutal that the system had to be shutdown and it changed human subject`s review approval for all psychological research from thereafter. And yet, here we are constituting a system that is brutalizing people in precisely these ways. MARTIN: You know, I always say, if you`re a hammer, everything looks like a nail.HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.MARTIN: Unfortunately, in prison -- prison guards don`t have a long menu of ways to respond to behavior by people doing time. First of all, there`s about 16 percent of people who are in solitary confinement that have committed violent sort of acts while in there.KAUR: That`s right.MARTIN: The rest of it, it pulls in folks like juveniles, the elderly, people of substance abuse issues, mental health issues and so on. And people ask me what is it like? I did six years in prison, I did a couple of weeks in solitary confinement. I know what it`s like you said. It`s like you said, you need to lock yourself in a small closet, be fed through a small slit in the door, have one two books at a time. If you have a bed, maybe take a mattress off of it. And the courts decided that it`s OK to put another cell adjacent to the cell or the sunlight comes through and that`s defined as recreation for one hour a day.KAUR: That`s right.HORN: If I may. I think there are a couple of things he said. First of all, it`s overused, unquestionably. Second of all, there`s no good justification for having juveniles in prisons and jails that are intended for adults. And in many jurisdictions, in order to protect juveniles, they are just directly placed into solitary confinement without -- HARRIS-PERRY: To protect.HORN: -- for not having done anything. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.HORN: And thirdly, this has to be said. The number of mentally ill people in prison has grown dramatically.HARRIS-PERRY: It`s how we treat the mentally ill -- HORN: In 2012, that`s a shame, that`s a scandal. I`m not suggesting that mental illness is equivalent to crime or leads to crime, but it`s a particularly cruel fate to be mentally ill and in prison.And the behaviors, the symptoms of the mental illness sometimes lead to the recourse to solitary and it`s entirely appropriate in people who have mental illness should be screened out. And, finally, when the government takes the step and sometimes it is necessary to protect other individuals from very predatory prisoners, to put someone in segregation, to physically separate them, then the government takes on a greater responsibility to avoid this extreme social isolation.I think that`s really the issue. It`s about money. It`s because there are too many people in prison, we can`t do it right.HARRIS-PERRY: Yes. And this is -- you know, again, because this is part of what we have been thinking approximate this show today as we were thinking about the issue of drones and of human rights violations and the real angst that we have about our role as a nation internationally and whether or not we`re violating human rights are through those sorts of war practices, but then we look at what`s happening right here at home and you feel like I need that same level of angst and of organization around it and I wonder is it even possible for -- when we start using language like the mentally ill or those with drug addictions or those who are incarcerated, you want to watch a political coalition fall apart, like that`s exactly the hardest group of people for us to get some sort of political coalition behind. MARTIN: It`s a double-edged sword on this issue, because you don`t want to pathologize everyone who ends up in prison. You don`t want it to go from poor people and people of color, of criminals to poor people and people or people of color.HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.MARTIN: Or have mental health issues or sick and so on.But I`m glad you brought up the war on terror, because unfortunately, I think it`s given the public more appetite for this and feeling more comfortable with hearing that people are in solitary confinement when you compare it to what we`re doing in our war on terror.HARRIS-PERRY: And Gitmo -- I`m going to come right back to you as soon as we come back. We`re going to take a quick break, but we`ll stay on this topic as soon as we`re back.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)HARRIS-PERRY: We`re back and talking about the conditions inside of America`s prisons.So, Judge, I wanted to go to you because you said there`s a connection between the mandatory minimums and solitary confinement. BENNETT: Well, I think so. It`s one of the unintended consequences of mandatory minimums. In 1980, the federal Bureau of Prisons have 4,200 inmates serving drug sentences. They now have 97,000. The Bureau of Prisons is 41 percent over capacity, 55 percent over capacity in the higher level security prisons where they tend to put people in solitary more often.So, it`s the overcrowding because of mandatory minimums and lengthy drug sentences that causes the increased use and overuse of solitary confinement. HARRIS-PERRY: You know, you make this point earlier about the sort of class warfare that`s part of the war on drugs. So, you end up with disparities with meth versus other kinds of drugs and with crack versus powder cocaine. But I think we have to remember that correctional officers also often come from very working class communities. It`s not a high-paid, well- remunerated job. And so, you end up with circumstances where -- as you were saying, Glenn, if you`re a hammer, everything appears to be a nail. You`ve got folks who often don`t have a lot of educational opportunities themselves in circumstances that are now overcrowded and solitary becomes the stick with which to try to control an entire population. KAUR: That`s right. You know, my passion for this issue actually began a few years ago when I visited Guantanamo to report on the military commissions, was concerned about the detention conditions there. I return to Yale Law School and realize that just miles away at my own state of Connecticut was a super max prison holding people in solitary, in conditions that rival the ones in Guantanamo. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.KAUR: And when we began working on the film, what we heard was this language that the super max prison was built for the worst of the worse, that these are dangerous violent offenders. When you dig into it a little bit more, you realize that the proliferation of prisons and we`ve had solitary since the early 19th century, but the proliferation of super max prisons in the last two decades, 45 out of 50 states now have super max prisons has led to their overuse. So, you have people like Meshael who are caught in the system and made to be worse. HARRIS-PERRY: And the fact that juveniles end up in these circumstances and as you were saying, sometimes simply put there supposedly for their own -- I think this is the one that makes me most appalled because at least in our country, there was for some period of time a sense that the retribution nature of adult corrections was different than what was meant to be the rehabilitative nature of juvenile corrections. But that wall seems to be completely gone.HORN: That changed. In the `80s and `90s, the idea of rehabilitation changed and our penal system became totally punitive. We were angry. There was so much crime in the `70s and `80s, we were angry about and the public wanted answers. In 1988, George H.W. Bush brought out the Willie Horton ads. And since that time, no politician can afford to be soft on crime. We`ve -- the use of solitary is in some ways a symptom of the overcrowding of the prison, the -- if you will, the dumping of all of our social problems, the mentally ill, juvenile, gangs, whatever.HARRIS-PERRY: Everybody.(CROSSTALK)HORN: -- on prisons. The resentment towards prisoners that leads to the underfunding of prisons -- overcrowding, making prisons unsafe and when they`re unsafe, people act out. They fight with each other. They end up in solitary. The officers are frightenedLet me -- I`ll go you one better. In at least one state, if an inmate entered the system and they believed he was a gang member, he was automatically put directly into segregation unless and until he renounced his gang membership and informed -- I`m talking about Guantanamo -- informed on other gang members which in some ways could be a death sentence for himself. HARRIS-PERRY: Right.KAUR: Right.HORN: Now, if that`s not an issue of segregation, I don`t know what is. HARRIS-PERRY: And I still appreciate that you brought this also into -- I mean, there`s an international politics for this, there`s a taste that we develop as a part of our war in terror. But there`s also a taste in our domestic politics that emerges. We have both Democrat and Republican presidents growing the size of the prison industrial complex. There`s also, of course profit behind all of this. Part of the reason you end up with super maxes is because there`s profit there. Martin, thank you for joining us today.We`ll stay on the issue of prisons. We`re going to try to pep up just a little because I promise there are at least some solutions to at least some aspects of our prison crisis. And we`re going to talk about those when we come back.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)HARRIS-PERRY: We`re going to shift gears from discussing the worst paradoxes and problems of our prison system to highlighting some of the possible solutions -- starting with individual inmates themselves. Meet Sean Pica, he`s executive director at the Hudson Link for Higher Education. His organization provides a college education, life skills and re-entry support to incarcerated men and women in four New York state correctional facilities. The national rate of recidivism within three years of an inmate`s release is more than 40 percent. For the 260 Hudson Link graduates, that number is zero -- which includes Sean Pica. He`s not only the executive director, he`s also an alum.(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)SEAN PICA, EXEC. DIRECTOR, HUDSON LINK: When I was 16 years old, I got into trouble, I found myself serving an eight to 24-year sentence. I went into a world I didn`t know existed. I spent the next 16 years in nine different maximum security prisons So many of the men I was around were returning to prison in the first year, 18 months. I thought, how am I going to be different? I remember vividly sitting in the correctional facility as a teenager just thinking what is my life going to look like. I`m serving a 24-year sentence. I never even graduated high school. I feel like I failed everything. I feel like I just failed in so many ways. And one of the officers came to my cell and he said to me, would you consider helping some of the other men here learn to read and write? I said, how am I going to do that? He said, Sean, you`re the most educated guy around. And I had only made it to the ninth grade. So there was this -- point where I realized I had a chance to possibly not be such a failure and use what I had to help others and it was really where my educational journey began. After 16 years in prison, I got my GED programming. I got my two-year, four-year and graduate work during that time. And I realized right away when I was released in 2002 after 16 years in prison, that the only thing I did have was that college education. And it was the only thing I needed.ERIC GLISSON, EXONERATED FMR. INMATE: I have a Mercy College ID now.PICA: Congratulations.GLISSON: Life is about progression. I used to see it in the men part of the Hudson Link Mercy College program and I said I can do that. They just had a glow about them. You see this transformation and you want that. PICA: There`s this growth of a person and a student that`s happening at the same time intertwining. Almost every one of the men and women that have been through the program, end up in the social services field. And what we started here in the prisons is now reaching back to the community. SEAN KYLER, SING SING INMATE: I`m a firm believer in the transformative power in education. Someone extended us an opportunity. Someone opened their checkbook. Someone opened their bank account and said that my life was worth living, that education can help the greater community. PICA: When I was released, I kept thinking that no one in my community is going to be able to forget the fact that I was in prison for nearly two decades. And that was going to the piece at the forefront of every conversation I had. When in reality, people are for forgiving and education levels every playing field.(END VIDEOTAPE)HARRIS-PERRY: Joining our panel is Hudson Link executive director, Sean Pica.Sean, thanks for being here.PICA: Thank you for having us. HARRIS-PERRY: So, education -- tell me how it`s so leveling for the former incarcerated?PICA: Statistically, the one thing we know research proven to change the level of playing field, we know firsthand that the higher the level of education that the men will receive while incarcerated, the lower the late of recidivism once released. If that`s the one thing that we look at, we know also impacts the community. We have to stop concentrating on the one person getting the education and think about the community that they effect as well.HARRIS-PERRY: I mean, this notion of like the cost of community is one of the things I think that often gets lost in our taste for incarceration in which it impacts children and spouses and mothers and sort of -- even just the drive that people make in order to visit their loved ones. So, tell me how this -- so if those are the costs, how is it that an educated formerly incarcerated person is a contribution back?PICA: I think there`s a large level of guilt that all men and women have when they`re incarcerated. And they basically take their whole family to prison with them in one way or another. So, to be able to come back and come back as a helper in this helping profession, they`re really good at it. They fit into the social service agencies in New York City. They really benefit back to the community and they`re also a financial benefit to the community that they once hurt, they come back as helpers now.HARRIS-PERRY: It`s interesting, Glenn, you were saying earlier you received a college education while in prison.MARTIN: Sure. I received a two-year liberal arts degree in prison. It probably cost about $12,000 a year through private donations. Think of that investment in terms of the payoff. I mean, essentially, our criminal justice system has become the repository for all the failed policies, including our educational policies. And so, the idea of providing education to people in prison should be a no brainer, if you will. And what happens is it`s a win-win. So, it`s a win for the individual who earns a degree and who`s sort of life outlook has changed and they have the tools to navigate the labor market and so on.But even for the correctional facility. When you have robust programming inside of prisons, people people in prison tend to behave. And not only do people go to college, but they end up helping other folks to get their GEDs. They become helpers while they`re still there in the facility before they hit the outside and they`re free. And then, once they`re free, think about it. They pay fines, fees, restitution, child support -- all the things that we really want people doing the productive things. HARRIS-PERRY: It`s one of the things that was startling to me as I was doing the research around solitary, was not only that people often are physically put in these spaces but so frequently kept from having any reading materials.I just -- I -- that seems like such a level of cruel and unusual punishment. When we see how exquisitely important education is, it also feels as though it`s counterproductive to what we`re doing.KAUR: And, of course. At Northern, like in other super max prisons across the country, there are no educational programs at all. So we have Meshael who we interviewed in our film released directly from solitary confinement to a random street in Hartford, Connecticut, with no kind of meaningful support system.He goes back home, meets a small girl and boy, he desperately wants to be a good father. I really want him to meet you, because he is actually facing a tremendous battle continuing to live out the damage from -- the psychological damage from being in solitary, the stigma of his crime, poor job opportunities. He wants to break the cycle of poverty and crime for himself and his family, but there seem to be no viable opportunities to do so.And he has told me, and if he commits an offense, he goes straight back to Northern. He has told me he will take his life (INAUDIBLE) return. He has prepared his family for that, because it is that dire.HARRIS-PERRY: I want to stay on the issue of education.And, Judge, I want to talk about if the system can ever begin to move towards -- so it`s not just the individual programs but a systematic way of rethinking about education and prison. So, a lot more when we come back.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)HARRIS-PERRY: Approximately 2.3 million people are currently behind bars in the United States. And as we`ve mentioned, more than four in 10 of them upon release will be back in prison within four years. Our focus this morning is how we get that number down and one part of the solution appears to be education. At least one study shows that inmates who take college courses have a 46 percent lower recidivism rate than those who don`t. And here in New York, housing just one incarcerated adult cost $54,000 a year. Compare that to the cost of the program we featured earlier, the Hudson Link for higher education in prison, where the total average cost to sponsor a bachelors degree, $35,000. That`s cheaper than getting a bachelors degree out here. So, remember those inmates don`t come back who are part of Hudson Link. So, imagine, a one-time investment of $35,000, saving taxpayers the cost of $54,000 year after year. The math seems to make sense.Judge, is there any possibility that we can move towards structurally changing how we think about our responses to crime so that those who are incarcerated have opportunity?BENNETT: Only if we can find the money to do it. That`s really the problem. The federal government spent so much money, the budget for the Bureau of Prisons is now over $7 billion. It`s grown dramatically.But the Bureau of Prisons still does a good job of educational programs but at the lower levels. The prison camps, we have to have a sentence of 10 years or less. They have a great 500-hour residential drug treatment center. I`ve visited many of those programs when I go visit inmates I`ve sentenced. I`ve sat through the program. I had one of the most moving experiences in my life sitting next to a young 22-year-old African-American woman from Arkansas that I had given a 10-year mandatory minimum to because of a crack case. And she asked me to come sit with her in her drug treatment program. And just to see her responses and how she participated in the program, it just made me smile. It`s something I`ll never forget. HARRIS-PERRY: So, certainly, money is part of it but it also feels like there`s a question of political will and whether or not we even feel like people who are incarcerated have the right to have these sorts of opportunities. MARTIN: Sure. I`m glad you brought that up because there must be listeners saying my son or daughter can`t afford to go to college, why should someone in prison get a chance to go in college?HARRIS-PERRY: Exactly, yes.MARTIN: I think that that`s argument to increasing access to education for everybody. HARRIS-PERRY: For everybody.MARTIN: Not taking away from people in prison, because we know that it works essentially. Unfortunately, Congress in its infinite wisdom back in 1994 being tough on crime, due to Violent Crime Control bill, took away Pell Grant eligibility for students who are incarcerated.And so, what did that do? Overnight, it decimated college programs in the criminal justice system -- went from over 400 programs to literally 30 programs in two semesters. Programs like Sean, in terms of sustainability constantly working hard to find individual donors and foundations to be supportive. We could easily take this to scale.If Sean is helping -- how many people are you helping in your program?PICA: We`re in 292 currently enrolled students. MARTIN: I`m sure we can take -- we have 56,000 people in prison in New York state. We could easily take this to scale ands do more good.HARRIS-PERRY: And, Glenn, I don`t want to miss that. I just don`t want folks to miss that this happened under a largely Democratic president, under Bill Clinton, where we had not only a massive increase in the amount of bodies, but of dramatic change of what was happening, and what we think of now as what we call the permanent x, right? So, my only angst about the education programs is that then it can sometimes lead us to forget that the new policies included that folks could no longer live in public housing when they came out. And, obviously, as you were pointing out about the man that you have done the work on -- I mean, you literally get put out on a side street. Public housing is for people who are on the brink of homelessness as many formerly incarcerated people are.There are state laws that keep people from doing all kinds of jobs, including things like being a barber in the state of Illinois. So, like I want to make sure we don`t lose sight of the institutional structural assets.MARTIN: We have publicly funded institutions across this country and private institutions that are barring people from applying to go to school based on whether or not they have a felony conviction. HARRIS-PERRY: Yes.MARTIN: So, the work we are doing at the Fortune Society through what`s called the EIO coalition, Education Inside Out, is to try to convince Congress to undo this mistake it made back in 1994. HARRIS-PERRY: Is there any good news?KAUR: I think there is good news. There`s a growing consensus that our system is broken and we`re seeing reforms in different states. California is an example. But Maine and Mississippi --- Mississippi of all states -- HARRIS-PERRY: Right.KAUR: -- has become a model for how to reduce numbers of people held in solitary confinement. This is under a Republican governor and legislature in Maine actually. So, this is something that where people who are wanting to make reform to save costs, because at least in Connecticut, it`s 44,000 to hold a person in regular prison. It`s $100,000 to hold them in solitary confinement. This is where the impulse to reduce costs can align with political will to rehabilitate prisoners rather than simply punish them. And I think we`re going to see pockets of change around the country that will continue to grow as long as we share stories with this. HARRIS-PERRY: I want to give you the last word on this. If there`s one thing that folks who are watching, who don`t as many of us loved ones incarcerated, what is the thing we need to know?PICA: I think that people don`t realize when we talk about partnerships with the educational courses, we think about the colleges, Mercy College in Nassau, Nia (ph) College, Vassar, SUNY Sullivan, but the Department of Corrections in New York is a partner in this. We could not be doing all of this amazing work without the Department of Corrections literally being a partner in every single step of this.HARRIS-PERRY: So, it matters what`s happening at the Department of Corrections. In Louisiana, in New Orleans, we call where we hold juveniles, youth study centers. Even though we don`t provide educational opportunities in these so-called youth study centers. And, you know, as I`ve told you before, Glenn, I have a brother who has spent much of his adult life in and out. And this remains of great interest to me. We will not be done with these issues. I`m glad there`s good news. And, Judge, I`m glad to know that there are judges who do things like visit those they sentence. We have to have our eyes open on this. Now, it is actually time for a preview of "WEEKENDS WITH ALEX WITT".ALEX WITT, MSNBC ANCHOR: It`s a hello to you, Melissa. Let`s get to it, everyone.As President Obama overseas, he weighs in on the violence in the Middle East. NBC`s Chuck Todd will be joining us from Bangkok live with all those details. Plus, as the so-called Iron Dome, defense of Israel, prevented a wider war already? Former State Department spokesperson P.J. Crowley will join me to talk about that.The fall of General Petraeus -- a renewed look at how America glorifies its top military brass and whether it`s warranted. I will talk to veteran war correspondent Kimberly Dozier. And in the spirit of the holiday, here`s what I`m asking. Should stores open their doors on Thanksgiving Day or should everyone get a break?It`s been interesting so far the tweets coming in on that, Melissa. I`m sure you have an opinion, too.HARRIS-PERRY: Thank you, Alex. I greatly appreciate it. And when we come back, I`ll give you my thoughts, actually, about Thanksgiving and the sense of guilt we have and I just want to say thanks to everybody out there in Nerdland who has been sticking around with us today. I know it has been a relatively more sober show for us than it often is. But I hope you will stick with us as we continue to try to think through the big issues of our day.When we come back -- my advice on Thanksgiving guilt.(COMMERCIAL BREAK)HARRIS-PERRY: This weekend, we`ve tried to tackle some tough issues and with so many things feeling complicated and unsettled. I bet you are looking forward to the simple pleasures of Thanksgiving -- a uniquely American holiday where you can relax with the Macy`s parade, and some football games and eat more food than you could possibly imagine. Except that Thanksgiving is not just that simple. The kindergarten story that you learned about grateful pilgrims and happy Indians is not even close to the historic reality of how European settlers brought violence, disease and land theft to the indigenous peoples who are already in this land long before it was discovered. The department store Macy`s, which staged its annual parade since 1924 is embroiled in controversy, as nearly a half million people urge them to discontinue their relationship with Donald Trump, whose vicious, racialized attacks on President Obama`s citizenship have continued unabated. And it`s hard to settle in to unbridled enthusiasm for a post meal pigskin fest when thousands of players filed suit against the NFL this year based on claims the league hid information related to head injuries and permanent brain damage. And as for having more than enough food on your holiday table -- well, as we talked about yesterday, that is not the situation facing millions of poor families in this country who regularly go hungry, even on Thanksgiving Day. So, what do we do with complexity when it feels like acknowledging it destroys our ability just to enjoy ourselves?Here`s what I suggest, embrace it, because gratitude, which is at the heart of Thanksgiving is completely consistent with acknowledging the agony and loss and injustice that undergirds our history. Gratitude is consistent with holding ourselves accountable with how our spending supports particular ideologies. Gratitude is consistent with knowing the real, personal cost borne by those who just entertain us. And gratitude is consistent with acknowledging that abundance so many of us take for granted is foreign to our neighbors who live and want. Let us give thanks. Let us feel overwhelmed with grateful awe, but let us do so with yes wide open and hands ready to do all the work there is left to do. And that is our show for today. Thank you to Sean Pica, Glenn Martin, Valarie and Judge Mark Bennett.Also, thanks to you at home for watching. I`ll see you again next Saturday at 10:00 a.m. Eastern. Until then, from all of us here, have a happy and socially conscious Thanksgiving.Coming up, "WEEKENDS WITH ALEX WITT."THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED. END

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