This program looks at the effects of family violence on the abused and the abuser: at the danger that abused children will grow up to repeat the pattern of violence in their own relationships; at the problems of date violence; at the physical and emotional abuse women suffer at the hands of their husbands and lovers. While showing the benefits of therapy, it stresses the need of the abused for safety-through shelters, hot-lines, and community assistance-from...

Ex-convicts face formidable odds, and for African-Americans, conditions are usually even more difficult. This documentary traces the experiences of four black ex-inmates over the course of a year, focusing on their challenges with employment, housing, addiction, and reconnecting with family-as well as their participation in the nontraditional African American Program for parolees. Richard, a 36-year-old crack addict, has spent 12 years in and out...

As leader of the Crips, the most powerful gang in Ohio's Lebanon Correctional Institution, Diedreikus Albert has mastered the prison system, turning it to his own advantage. This program follows the inmate through his daily life at the facility. With no respect for the law and little remorse for the senseless killing that landed him behind bars, Albert is doing time his way. He allows viewers inside the mind of a career criminal, showing how convicts...

Facing severe understaffing and overcrowding, Wyoming State Penitentiary has gone to extreme measures, enlisting prospective officers from economically depressed areas across the United States. Unfortunately, these raw recruits tend to have one thing in common: a complete lack of law-enforcement experience. This program follows three new hires into the crucible where they face the challenges of officer training, inmate hostility, and the psychological...

When other California prisons can't handle their most violent gang members, they send them to Pelican Bay State Prison. This program takes viewers inside the notorious facility. From here, leaders of gangs such as Nuestra Familia, the Mexican Mafia, the Aryan Brotherhood, the Black Guerillas, and the Nazi Low Riders smuggle orders to lieutenants on the streets. These operatives, in turn, handle everything from drug-distribution businesses to assassinations-including...

Located in the California desert, Ironwood Correctional Facility is a series of extremes. This program explores the overcrowded, understaffed prison, which is subject to brutally hot summers and powder-keg tensions. But a group of inmates among the population of 4,800 are dedicated to self-improvement, attending classes in the face of menacing opposition from gang members. When riots erupt in the withering 112-degree heat, many of the prison's 81...

In Missouri, a different method of juvenile detention has seen surprisingly successful results, trading in orange jumpsuits and cell blocks for therapists and dorm rooms. This edition of Primetime spends a year with the hard-core offenders at Waverly Regional Youth Center and Rosa Parks Center to see how a combination of nurturing and discipline are transforming inmates into potentially productive members of society-and for half the average national...

There are two sets of rules at Folsom Maximum Security Prison: the "guard rules" and the "yard rules." For an incoming inmate, negotiating the brutal yet invisible prison culture can be deadly. This program takes viewers inside Folsom to learn how the system works. From the severely regimented rules enforced by prison authorities to the unwritten codes that any inmate who wants to survive must obey, there has never been an escape. It is a confusing...

In this ABC News program, John Stossel sheds light on troubling issues involving sexual behavior and criminal justice. Case studies include the story of 18-year-old Jon, who spent a year in jail after having sex with a 14-year-old girl-although her father later regretted pressing charges and tried to have Jon removed from Florida's sex offender registry. Other reports concern an alleged sex offender who was "framed" by his younger sister, a father...