Inside the World's Toughest Prisons

Porto Velho Penitentiary, one of Brazil's most notorious prisons.

Home to some of the country's most ruthless gang members,

locked in a bloody war.

With nine vicious riots in the last ten years alone...

...and with only one guard to every 80 inmates,

the prison is under constant threat of the next violent uprising.

What I'm feeling is vulnerable, because these guys are barbaric.

They don't just hurt you. They cut your heart out.

The gang fighting will be over only when everyone is eliminated.

My name is Raphael Rowe.

I'm going to be spending a week banged up in this Brazilian prison.

Cough. Cough hard.

It's not my first time behind bars.

I was convicted in the UK of a murder I did not commit

and sentenced to life with no parole.

I fought long and hard to clear my name.

I was 19 years old when they put me in prison.

I'm 32 years old now. 12 years of my life lost, gone forever.

Now I'm traveling the globe to discover what life is really like

inside some of the world's toughest prisons.

Rondônia is Brazil's Wild West.

The Amazonian state is the front line in a deadly turf war

between the country's most powerful drug gangs.

Now the police are fighting back,

packing the prisons with rival gang members.

I've come to the state capital, Porto Velho.

I'll be spending a week locked up alongside 8,000 criminals

in one of the country's toughest prisons.

But before I go inside,

I want to get a better understanding of why so many men end up in prison.

I'm joining the military police on a drug-gang purging mission.

These heavily armed police officers are putting me on edge.

They're carrying huge amounts of armory: assault rifles, hand pistols.

And they look like they mean business,

so I suspect that what they're up against is dangerous, ruthless criminals.

How dangerous is it for your officers to go out and do what you are doing today?

The level of risk is very high.

Here in Porto Velho, the civil police have identified some gangs,

some individuals with medium and heavy weaponry.

Squad! Attention, squad!

The unit filters out all over the city

to disrupt gang activity and arrest dealers.

Stop, son of a bitch! Hey!

Stop! Stop, sucker!

Stop, son of a bitch!

I'm shocked at how young many of them are,

but not half as much as the stash they've been busted for.

Do you think he will go to prison for...

what I perceive to be quite a small amount of cannabis?

He will because Brazilian legislation

does not take into account the amount, only the act.

So when we catch them, even if we find a small amount,

because he is dealing,

the penalty is imprisonment from five to ten years.

These teenagers appear to be no more than low-level foot soldiers.

It seems pretty harsh for such a small quantity of drugs.

Um... I'm trying to appreciate the difficulty that they have,

you know, policing the streets, but it just seems so harsh.

With the government's zero tolerance policy to narcotics,

it's no wonder that over 40% of inmates are in prison for drug offenses.

Do you know what's gonna happen to your friend now?

Where he will end up, what prison he will go to, and what it's like there?

I know he will go to the prison. It's very bad, hard.

The conditions are terrible in that place.

I've been there many times already.

Those scooped up off the streets are sent to Porto Velho Prison Complex.

Here, small-time criminals live alongside ruthless convicts,

doing hard time for trafficking, rape and murder.

Most of the inmates are members of Brazil's two most prolific gangs,

both of which were formed in prisons:

the Red Command, from Rio de Janeiro,

and the Primeiro Comando da Capital, or PCC, from São Paulo.

Today their brutal criminal network spreads into all corners of Brazil,

with catastrophic results for the country.

Now sworn enemies, their battle to control the drug trade

has turned to all-out war.

This conflict is at its most barbaric

within the walls of prisons just like Porto Velho...

...where the authorities are fighting a losing battle

to contain the threat of deadly riots.

This explosive place is where I'm heading now,

to spend a week behind bars.

I'm going into a prison that has an international reputation

of being one of the most dangerous prisons in the world,

if not the most dangerous prison in the world.

They've had five riots in the last 15 years

where people have lost their lives.

It can't get any worse than that.

It's a terrifying experience.

It's an unnerving experience.

I'm nervous. I'm not scared, not yet.

Until I see what it's about, I'm not scared. But I am nervous.

I've never been in a Brazilian prison before,

let alone one with a reputation as violent as this.

I'm feeling pretty apprehensive.

My first impression is that I'm in some sort of outdoor building complex.

But, actually, I know I'm in a dangerous place

because of the armory these guards have.

The complex is made up of nine separate facilities

holding 8,000 inmates.

My introduction to this vast prison is an intimidating unit called Pandinha.

Here, new prisoners are monitored. In some cases, for over a year.

They're interrogated to assess risk and determine their gang affiliations.

It's a harsh and unforgiving hellhole

where the prisoners are climatized to their new home.

This really does feel like I'm in prison.

I've just come into the belly of the beast.

Fifteen-foot wall, barbed wires,

and it just has that feel about prison that I know all too well.

As the armed police hand me over to the prison authorities,

I know what's coming next.

Why is this necessary?

I'm in a room with two heavily armed guards,

naked with handcuffs on.

What is it that you're looking for?

You could have something that you could use against me.

Cough. Cough hard.

Get up.

The one thing that's really... significant,

it's not the search. It's not looking for contraband.

It's your dignity. Already, they have seen your private part.

They know something about you that nobody else does

apart from people that you have an intimate relationship with,

and that gives a prison officer the upper hand.

That's what it's feeling like for me.

As I'm taken to a temporary holding cell, I notice the guards seem on edge.

It's making me very nervous.

- -

The whole process for me so far...

is reminding me of how hard you have to become to survive.

That's my instinct. That's what I'm feeling.

It feels medieval. It feels...

The thing that went through my mind is I felt like a gladiator.

I'm coming in here with just my pants. I'm naked other than that,

and I'm in this environment that makes me feel like

the next time I'm let out,

I'm going to go and do battle with some other prisoner.

The Pandinha reception unit has multiple holding cells.

The deadly risk of mixing gang members

means the authorities are taking no chances.

Do you belong to, or are you involved with, any criminal factions?

Why is it important that I answer that question?

If the prisoners know you are from a gang,

you will be treated like someone from that gang.

So if you mix with another faction, your life will be at risk.

No, I'm not.

The wrong man in the wrong cell could be fatal.

Against the wall.

I've no idea what the guys in this monitoring cell are in for,

or if they are gang members or not.

Go over there so we can take your handcuffs off.

The heat in here is brutal, and it absolutely stinks.

I've been in group cells before, but never anything like this.

Is this the holding cell?

How long have you guys been in this cell? Or this block?

Ten days.

Ten days?

Ten days. Just the way you see us, that's how it is here.

How do you feel about the fact

that these guys are out there pointing guns at you?

Look. Here, look here.

So this is a rubber bullet.

This is a rubber bullet that they fire at you?

The toilet was blocked. There was sewage all over the floor.

They fired at us. Everyone was on the floor in the shit.

And are they doing that because you did something wrong?

Or are they doing it to punish you?

Because we were trying to fill the water bottles,

and there was a shouting match. Understand?

So the guards came over. They were shooting at us.

We stayed there quite some time,

until they changed shifts, and we were allowed to get up.

Has anybody been in here before, in this prison before?

I spent nine months in Pavilion A. Nine months. A lot of oppression.

You've been here before. You know the conditions.

How come you are here again?

Weakness. My family needed me.

I was looking for work and didn't find anything.

The only way to look after my family

was to do the only thing I knew how to do: steal.

And how big a problem, for all of you, is the gangs here in this prison?

Yes. It affects everyone's life.

It affects everyone's life that finds themselves stuck in this system.

It's a war, because they just don't care.

If there is a clash

and you're in the wrong place at the wrong time,

you go down, too.

After a tough introduction to this gang-infested prison,

I'm apprehensive about where I'm going next.

I've been assigned to a unit called

Ênio dos Santos Pinheiro, or Ênio for short,

where 620 men live in three residential cell blocks

called pavilions.

After two massacres of Red Command gang members in the last year,

the entire unit now only houses the PCC.

I'm escorted to Pavilion C by guard Pedro.

What do you expect of me as a new prisoner?

When I come into your prison, you're walking me to this new unit,

what are you expecting of me?

We usually expect that the prisoners respect other prisoners, right?