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You’re an inmate in prison,
and a riot breaks out in the lunchroom.
Other inmates are hoping to overthrow
the guards and escape.
Everyone is pushing and shoving,
and the situation is out of control.
How can you stay safe?
The United States has the world's
highest ratio of incarcerated individuals
at 724 inmates per 100,000 people.
When a riot starts, you must decide
what your course of action will be.
In the midst of absolute chaos,
and whether you are an inmate or a guard,
your life is at risk.
If you are indecisive,
you leave yourself open to getting hurt,
caught, or killed.
Whether you are a guard or an inmate,
if you are in immediate danger,
assess the situation and figure out
what you're going to do.
If you fight your way through the prison break,
you might be able to avoid being ganged up
on and survive with only some
scrapes or bruises.
This might mean trying to remember all
the Jackie Chan movies you’ve watched
in your life.
Or, you could give up if more than
one person is attacking you.
Letting yourself be caught
might save your life.
Whether you are a guard or an inmate,
hiding until the chaos dies down
would be a good idea.
If you were a guard, it might not be
the most dutiful thing you could do,
but your life and safety are more important.
And as an inmate, you could hide in your cell.
You'd lose a chance to escape,
but you’d probably be safe that way.
There will always
be more inmates than guards.
So, if you get a chance to run away without
severely injuring yourself, do it.
I mean, you’re not digging a tunnel
underneath the prison to escape like El Chapo,
and this might be your one and only chance.
You could increase your chances of escaping
by teaming up with others.
However, if you choose to escape,
make sure that you do not get caught,
as it will leave a permanent mark
on your record.
And remember, some prisons use radio
frequency ID tracking tags
to keep tabs on inmates.
It sounds very cliche,
but crying for help and then attacking
the guard who comes to help you
might give you a window of opportunity
to escape the chaos inside the prison walls.
Otherwise,
if you cry for help during a riot,
you might just be helped by a guard
and be able to avoid being punished
for taking part in planning or even
participating in the riot.
But no matter what,
As an inmate,
your first thought might be to overpower
a guard and take their gun.
But that could prove to be deadly to you.
Once you are identified as carrying a weapon,
you'll become a target for the other guards.
They'll shoot you in self-defense,
putting you at an even higher risk.
In 1971,
during a four-day revolt in
the U.S. Attica Correctional Facility,
1,281 inmates
held 39 guards and employees as hostages.
When negotiations failed,
the mayor of New York gave an ultimatum
to resolve the issue.
"The people in here are treated like dogs
we're going to get what we planned
or we gonna die trying”.
It ended with 29 hostages
and 10 inmates dead,
and 89 people wounded.
In many countries,
there probably wouldn’t be
a major prison break.
The ratio of attempted escapes per number
of inmates has drastically decreased
in the past 20 years.
And some prisons use advanced technology
to make it more difficult
for inmates to escape.
And if you do get caught trying to escape,
then you might get transferred
to a worse prison,
one that's a lot more dangerous.
Would you know how to stay alive
within those walls?
Find out here.