At chow time, there are 800 inmates and just two COs. But with just this class, we could take it back.

We are not going to pay you that much,” he says emphatically. “The next raise you get is not going to be much more than the one you got last time. The only thing that’s important to us is that we go home at the end of the day. Period. So if them fools want to cut each other, well, happy cutting

I’d sit there and holler ‘stop,'” says a veteran guard.Mr. Tucker points at her. “Damn right. That’s it. If they don’t pay attention to you, hey, there ain’t nothing else you can do.

Nah, I been around,” he says. “I seen killin’. My uncle killed three people. My brother been in jail, and my cousin.” He has scars on his arms. One, he says, is from a shootout in Baton Rouge. The other is from a street fight in Winnfield. He elbowed someone in the face, and the next thing he knew he got knifed from behind. “It was some gang shit.” He says he just needs a job until he starts college in a few months. He has a baby to feed. He also wants to put speakers in his truck. They told him he could work on his days off, so he’ll probably come in every day. “That will be a fat paycheck.” He puts his head down on the table and falls asleep

When we go through security, we are told to empty our pockets and remove our shoes and belts. This is intensely nerve-wracking: I send my watch, pen, employee ID, and pocket change through the X-ray machine. I walk through the metal detector and a CO runs a wand up and down my body and pats down my chest, back, arms, and legs

I started applying for jobs in private prisons because I wanted to see the inner workings of an industry that holds 131,000 of the nation’s 1.6 million prisoners.

Not only does Louisiana have the highest incarceration rate in the world—more than 800 prisoners per 100,000 residents—but Winn is the oldest privately operated medium-security prison in the country

Inmate population: About 1,500•75% black, 25% white or other•Average inmate age: 36•Average sentence: 19 years•Average time served: 5.7 years•Daily rate charged to state per inmate (2015): $34INMATE OFFENSES•Violent crimes: 55%•Drug crimes: 19%•Property crimes: 13%•Other: 13

CCA certainly seemed eager to give me a chance to join its team. Within two weeks of filling out its online application, using my real name and personal information, several CCA prisons contacted me, some multiple times.They weren’t interested in the details of my résumé.

When prisons do let reporters in, it’s usually for carefully managed tours and monitored interviews with inmates.

hake down bed eight real good—just because he pissed me off.

There are almost never more than two floor officers per general population unit. That’s one per 176 inmates. (CCA later tells me that the Louisiana Department of Corrections, or DOC, considered the “staffing pattern” at Winn “appropriate.”)

He’s boasted to me about inmate management tactics he’s learned from seasoned officers. “You just pit ’em against each other and that’s the easiest way to get your job done,” he tells me. He says one guard told him that inmates should tell troublemakers, “‘I’m gonna rape you if you try that shit again.’ Or something; whatever it takes

journalist

Miss Doucet and others from the class ahead of mine go to the front office to get their paychecks for their first two weeks of work. When they return, the shoulders of a young cadet are slumping. He says his check was for $577, after they took $121 in taxes

You see this chaos?” the inmate in the beanie says to Collinsworth. “If you’d been to other camps, you’d see the order they got. Ain’t no order here. Inmates run this bitch, son.