I cannot believe this documentary was made almost 20 years ago in 2008. It was the saddest, most disturbing TV I’ve seen in a long time and following two terms of Donald Trump as President in the US I dread to think what the environment in San Quentin, the famous penitentiary in Northern California is like now.

For anyone interested in human behaviour, as a teacher I worry about the mental health of young people, especially the boys becoming like the disturbed and the deranged, prisoners interviewed for the film and looking at the border between the sane and insane, the impact of environment and upbringing, absent parents, teachers, people like me, addiction and aspiration and the human cost and ineffective rehabilitation of locking people, human beings (regardless of their crimes) in cages for 23 hours a day, this is a great watch. Not in a happy entertaining way obviously but in a dark, worrying, educational, thought provoking even disturbing insightful way. A deep dive into our wider humanity and ability to consider why current systems of incarceration just don’t work.

I have always understood the difference between, American the home of the brave and the land of the free which divides the rich and the poor more brutally than anywhere in the world, where the welfare state is pretty much none existent and the violent crime particularly gun crime surpasses most other places around the world and the UK, the Land of Hope and Glory where an over relied upon welfare state and free heath care system has the opposite negative effect of discouraging work and costing the economy and the tax payer dearly, but if I ever found myself in prison I know which I would prefer.

OMG Louis Theroux’s two week visit to San Quentin, where he met pedophiles praying and blaming demon possession for their crimes to transgender prisoners sharing cells and forming romantic connections with other inmates was truly shocking.

Gay men dressing up as women and wearing make up as a way of risk limitation, a man pretending to be a women gets treated better ie less likely to get beaten to pulp or raped than a gay man is the reality.

Louis eats breakfast with gang members segregated by race, it’s just the way it is they explain and don’t take food or borrow a set of domino’s from the blacks or the Mexicans unless you want your head smashed in.

Louis asks why they think on the outside different people manage to “rub along” but on the inside that doesn’t happen. They ponder the question, the thinking is visible, but Without any reason, the response is “it’s just the way it is”

We couldn’t believe it, look they don’t know why they do it, my friend watching with me, shouted at the TV.

Rats in cages is the visual. A confessed torturer with a 500 plus year sentence and 11 consecutive life terms to serve explains he sees his sentence as his 401K, a retirement plan you pay for over your working life, as he walks a two by three metre wire cage outside with a toilet in it. He is deemed too dangerous to have yard time, one hour per day with the other prisoners.

Louis asks him if he has questioned if there might be something wrong with his mental state. His reply, of course, if you didn’t question why you had done such terrible things then you would have to be crazy. He confesses his chilling crimes like recounting popping out to Tesco for a loaf of bread but remarkably cool and calm, seemingly not especially unhappy with his predicament. The guard says the reason the prisoners are so happy to speak to Louis on camera, it makes them feel like somebody, even if just for a moment.

Armed guards, ready to shoot to wound and immobilise not to kill are positioned on platforms above the prisoners should anything occur makes you realise how precarious and unstable an environment this is. The noise, the shouting, the gassing, (throwing urine on guards or other prisoners) the requirement to wear a protective vest at all times to ensure vital organs, heart, lungs, liver cannot be punctured by a disgruntled prisoner all add up to hell on earth.

One 21 year old recent arrival convicted of murder and serving his sentence alongside the most dangerous category 4 prisoners speaks to Louis with confidence and no sign of fear. The guard explains he’s doing the right thing. Show one glimmer of weakness in that environment he says and you are a dead man. These people will stop at nothing to terrorise, exploit, abuse and sexually violate their fellow inmates the reason why so many move in gangs and take the consequences and requirement to obey the hierarchy when it comes to inflicting punishment via unwritten codes of conduct, usually violent acts towards rule breakers, like the guy who borrowed the domino’s from the wrong person.

Watch this and be prepared to be disturbed for sure. Maybe if we all watch it we might collectively be able to come up with better ways to engage prisoners to be more productive whilst serving their sentences and offer them some outlet to talk about their feelings, experiences and give them the therapy they clearly need. Maybe then we might have some hope of rehabilitating some of these forgotten souls, stop the reoffending and show them something new.

Well done Louis Theroux for this brave expose which I am sure was at times absolutely terrifying to film.