Quick warning at the top, this show gets into some detail about some pretty terrible conditions at a prison in Mississippi, including a description of a suicide attempt.

When I asked Alicia Santo how bad things were inside Mississippi's Wilkinson County Correctional Facility. She whipped out her phone

and said, here, I'll show you. So this is one of the guys. This is our messaging. Is that a knife?

Yes. That's a photo he took of someone else holding a shank. These are messages from prisoners.

And if you're like me and you're thinking, how did a bunch of prison inmates get cell phones,

that is the least remarkable thing about the story

Alicia is about to tell you.

There's cell phones all over that place.

It's a wash in cell phones and weapons and drugs, too.

Elise is a reporter for the Marshall Project.

Her niche is prison coverage.

The fact that there were cell phones and weapons in this facility,

it just doesn't shock her the way it shocked me.

So because the prison is falling apart,

there's exposed metal and prisoners are taking out pieces of metal and sharpening them and making knives.

One of the weapons was a 48-inch spear-like instrument.

There was a six-inch toothbrush with a razor attached on it.

Some people use them.

Some people just keep them because they're afraid they're going to get attacked and they feel that they need to be armed with something.

The prisoners told Alicia they need to be armed because they don't trust the guards to protect them.

At one point, somebody inside committed suicide, and I got multiple calls that day from people

who had witnessed the entire incident. He slit his own throat, they said, and they had watched

...