Monday May 26 - 10:30pm (PG)

Tonight, LOUIS THEROUX Louis investigates San Quentin, the oldest and most notorious maximum security prison in California – and the only one with a death row. Once home to serial murderer Charles Manson, San Quentin continues to bang up, and execute, the most dangerous criminals in California.

Fear of crime is an all pervading theme in America. People sleep with guns under their pillows, petrified that they will be the next victims of the murderers they see daily on their TV’s. California has responded to this climate with a firm hand and as a result most state prisons hold more than twice the capacity they were built for, forcing prisoners to triple-bunk in open warehouse sized gymnasiums. San Quentin is no exception.

In this 6000 strong prison full of serial murderers, rapists, paedophiles and gang members Louis spends time getting to know the inmates and prison guards and becomes part of the day to day of prison life. Can Louis see beyond the crime when he meets an inmate? Can actually prisoners change and better themselves or is this wishful thinking? The guards say that it’s not easy to rehabilitate prisoners in prison; that the best they can do is keep the peace, and even that is difficult sometimes. The gang culture is too strong, the loneliness too much to handle, and the drugs too tempting. They say that they have seen inmates back in prison sometimes as little as three hours after they’ve been released.

During his time behind bars, Louis joins the guards for cell ‘shake downs’ where ingenious and terrifying deadly weapons are found. He spends time with an inmate and his family during visitation period – when drugs and weapons are regularly smuggled in. Louis witnesses the arrival of a fresh new inmate, a kid who has never been in prison before. Louis sees him taken through the arrivals procedure with 300 other bodies that have arrived that day. Has he lived a life of crime until now and prison is the rite of passage he has been waiting for or was it a genuine mistake and all he wants now is to stay on the straight and narrow and get out as quickly as possible?

Louis walks the yard getting to know members of the notorious Californian gangs and learns how racial and gang segregation lines are gospel and not to be crossed. In the ‘special needs’ unit, as the guards call it, Louis meets the sex offenders and gang drop outs who would be killed immediately were they to go back to the main section of the prison.