No tight or revealing clothing, no blue jeans, no blue shirts, no orange clothing, no jewelry, no cell phones.

For the first time, I thought of the possible mental condition of the people I was visiting, and how little some of them would have to lose.

I had been in a car crash (not serious) the day before. I wasn’t expecting anything bad to happen to me inside the prison. But imagined that if it did it would be much the same kind of sudden violence coming out of nowhere.

I realized all my trousers that weren’t jeans were dressy. I thought of the absurdity of buying new clothes to visit a prison, and found a pair of (tight) brown corduroys. I dug in my boyfriend’s wardrobe and found an old black t-shirt that was long and baggy on me.

I asked him how I looked. He said brown and black was a bad color combination, but that I looked suitably dressed for the reception area for new prisoners.

I was visiting the California Institution for Men state prison in Chino, with Reuters television cameraman Krystian Orlinski and producer Dave Adhicary.

The U.S. Supreme Court has just ordered California to release more than 30,000 inmates over the next two years or take other steps to ease overcrowding in its prisons to prevent “needless suffering and death.” California’s 33 adult prisons were designed to hold about 80,000 inmates and now have about 145,000.

The U.S. has more than 2 million people in state and local prisons. It has long had the highest incarceration rate in the world.

The prison houses 5,982 inmates on a patch of arid farmland east of Los Angeles. As we stepped out into the parking lot we saw what looked like barracks behind a triple layer electric fence, topped with razor wire.

A crackle of machine gun fire broke the silence. Then another. I looked at Krystian and raised an eyebrow. “Yes those were automatic weapons,” he answered.

We met the press officer, who told us there was a firing range inside the prison, so the officers could stay sharp. He began our tour.

First stop was the sensitive-needs exercise yard. Our guide explained that this was where they kept sex offenders, gang members who owed money, and other inmates who wouldn’t be safe living with other prisoners.

Most were walking slowly around the perimeter fence. Some waited in line to use the parallel bars in the center. One sunbathed on a bench.

I saw a prisoner with red hair and tattoos of Celtic knot patterns and shamrocks. The harsh midday sun beat down on his pale skin. I wondered why he didn’t wear a t-shirt. I thought of how much I relied on sun block, sunglasses and a hat, living in California. I noted that I’d never seen so many people with multiple tattoos in one place.

I shot the inmates walking with a 70-200mm. I manually focused to compensate for the many layers of mesh fence. Some made gang signs, some smiled, some glared, some shouted out questions about who I was working for.

A rhythmic shouting cadence came from a building next to the exercise yard.

Our guide explained that gang members in jail viewed themselves as soldiers. They trained to be ready to fight at any time – with prison officers, other prisoners, upon their eventual release.

Even when they weren’t allowed out to exercise, they would work out together in their cells. One guy would shout through his cell bars, out to the echoing hallways, to set the pace as the other inmates would do pushups in their tiny cells.

The prison officers all looked as if they were onto that game, and had built their upper body strength to match the prisoners pound for pound.

Prisoners sitting in small cages were our first sight as we walked inside. They are kept in the cages while waiting for medical or counseling appointments, or for permanent housing. A couple of women walked down the corridor, wearing bulletproof vests.

First we visited a two-person cell, where prisoners are typically housed.

Anthony Turner, 46, showed us around the tiny living quarters he shares with Daniel King, 25. When they both lie down in their bunk beds there is barely an inch of vertical space between them. A toilet and small basin are next to the beds. The only possessions in the cell were a few basic toiletries, some greetings cards, a photo of a pregnant woman, and a poignant handmade card from a child.

“We miss you. xoxoxxoo. p.s. come visit soon!” it said, next to a drawing of a king.

Turner said he was given a 25 years to life sentence under the three strikes law. He is unlikely to be visiting anyone soon.

We visit a recreation room, and then a huge gymnasium, which are being used to house prisoners, due to the overcrowding.

As my eyes adjusted to the dim light of the gym, I imagined walking in here as a new prisoner and taking in the 202 people I would be spending years in this room with. They were a scary-looking bunch.

A heavy-set guy with tattoos all over his body and neck started shouting that he didn’t want to be on camera.

We walked up the stairs onto the platform where a female prison officer was sitting. I wondered how she could deal with working every day in this room full of aggressive men.

Another guard had the whole room in his gun sight through a window in the top left corner of the room.

One of the prison officers accompanying us said he had been spat at, bitten, and stabbed during the time he had worked there. Another remarked that the sleeping quarters in the gym were not much different from the ones he had experienced in the U.S. Navy.

There are no rehabilitation programs inside the prison, and inmates have nothing constructive to do all day except for the brief periods when they can go outside to work out.

Some were sleeping, some reading, some playing cards or dice, one group was playing a dungeons and dragons game, one guy was sketching tattoo designs, another crowd was watching music videos on a small television. Most were wandering around or chatting.

I photographed inmates on the right side of the room, while checking out the belligerent prisoner with my left eye. He was staring at me.

Krystian and Dave started filming a group of prisoners, and very quickly the guy who didn’t want to be filmed, was in front and center of the camera.

I walked down and started photographing them with a wide angle lens. A lot of them were staring into the camera and all trying to simultaneously start conversations with me.

I decided I wanted to walk among the beds to take more natural looking photos. I asked a guard to follow me to watch my back, and he stood right behind me every time I stopped walking, aware of the remote possibility that I could be grabbed as a hostage. We moved fast, and before long were called back by the press officer.

On the drive home, I asked about the prison tattoos and Krystian talked about how prisoners who didn’t join gangs for protection were vulnerable to being raped in the bathroom at the back of the gym.

I recalled the inmates’ faces I’d seen with their varying degrees of resignation or defiance.

“I don’t know what I’d do if I had to go into a place like that,” said Krystian. “No-one ever really knows until they’re in that situation.”

REUTERS PHOTOGRAPHERS BLOG

GLOBE AND MAIL

Matthew Doyle grew up by the beach in Santa Monica, California, and with his slim physique and tattooed forearms, looks as if he’s been surfing his whole life.

But it took three tours of duty half a world away, many sleepless nights, and meeting a woman named Carly before the 26-year-old U.S. Army veteran braved the waves on a surfboard.

On a recent Saturday, I met Doyle and a group of 11 other young military veterans trying to overcome the horrors of war at Manhattan Beach, just south of Los Angeles, where occupational therapist Carly Rogers led them in a surf therapy class.

With the exhilarating goal of riding down the face of the wave, the constant paddling out through the whitewater and occasional wipeouts, the motion of the ocean is helping former soldiers, sailors and Marines return to normal.

“I fell in love with it as soon as I got in the water,” Doyle says. “After I came back from Iraq, I lost interest in the things I used to do, and I lost a lot of friends from being gone so long. And I never really had a reason to go outside. But now every day I just want to surf.”

Rogers figures she’s worked with at least 400 war vets since she started the program with the Jimmy Miller Foundation four years ago to deal with the growing number of service members returning from war with wounds that weren’t visible.

“I had this dream of healing people with the ocean,” she says.

Surfing helped her deal with the death of her mother in 1994, when she was 18 and working as a lifeguard. As a graduate student, she had designed a surf therapy program to work with kids. The program only existed in a manual until her friend and fellow lifeguard, Jimmy Miller, took his own life. Miller’s brother said they had to make the program a reality.

WATCH REUTERS VIDEO

In 2005, they launched the foundation and began working with children at risk of mental illness, which Miller suffered from. The program was expanded after a foundation board member said they should help wounded and emotionally scarred troops returning from battle in Iraq and Afghanistan.

“At that time I had no previous experience with the military, and I was actually like ‘Whoa, I don’t think so,’” Rogers says.

Many of those in the program suffer from post traumatic stress disorder. Symptoms include substance abuse, insomnia, isolation, lack of confidence and anger.

Marines at Camp Pendleton showed up at the first class in their camouflage fatigues and combat boots. They were withdrawn and had little expression.

“Slowly those things came off,” she said. “Once again we were all surfers on the beach. And it gives me the chills talking about it right now – it just changed my life. … After one day of surfing they were smiling and laughing, telling jokes, high-fiving.”

Rogers used the experience to earn her occupational therapy doctorate, working at the Veterans Administration to research how surfing helps veterans with PTSD.

Doyle, who was knocked unconscious by an IED explosion and got a concussion and six stitches in his forehead, is coping with PTSD after two tours in Iraq and one in Afghanistan.

“The first year I was deployed didn’t really affect me. It was more shellshock – you don’t really understand what you’ve gone through. And by the time I got a chance to think about it, I was already deployed again.”

Nearly 50 percent of the veterans don’t show up for mental health appointments at the VA, Rogers said. Turnout is much better at surf school.

The group meets five consecutive Saturdays. She starts each day with an informal discussion, circling the troops and her cadre of volunteers at the start of the session.

Beach volleyball players kick up sand nearby and dolphins leap just beyond the surf break as Rogers coaxes them to talk about their experiences and their progress.

Then wearing full wetsuits and each with a volunteer instructor, they hit the surf for a couple of hours. They have to bust through the incoming surf, paddle to catch a wave and then try to stand up.

I attach a GoPro HD camera in waterproof housing to the front of Doyle’s surfboard and it catches all the frustration and fun. I had shot video with the camera before, but Reuters photographer Denis Balibouse in Switzerland gave me the idea to use it as a still camera. I set it to shoot every two seconds, and Doyle wades into the ocean with the GoPro attached to his board.

He wears a smile as waves surge toward his face and then floats on the board waiting for the right break. He clambers onto the board and stands for a few brief rides before tumbling into the sea. More smiles.

Perhaps the biggest benefit comes that night. After years of sleepless nights from combat stress, Doyle is finally able to sleep.

REUTERS PHOTOBLOG

REUTERS ARTICLE

REUTERS VIDEO

MSNBC