Since prisons are by law not allowed to administer that level of punishment (cruel and unusual), it falls to other inmates to do the job.
Thus, you get "the guards are not in control." Without the one, you get the other. At least for inmates of the most incorrigible sort.
Some inmates simply can’t or won’t follow the rules. They get send to secure housing units within prisons.
They’re too dangerous to be allowed around other inmates and correctional officers should have minimal contact with them.
Prison doesn’t really reform people. Its not really a deterrent to crime and people stamped with the scarlett letter of “felon” - its nearly impossible for them to make it in the outside world.
That’s true for people not convicted of crimes against other people.
Maximum security prisons are filled with men who simply will not follow any rules, unless those rules are backed up with the threat of severe physical injury or death. There are some who don’t even fear severe injury. They are essentially violently insane, homicidal and suicidal.
Such was the case of those in Solitary in the PBS documentary I was watching. Psychologists spent lots of time trying to solve their individual issues in order to get them into the General prison population. It proved impossible to get them all to the point they could be trusted in the general population. Some could not sustain normality for more than a few days without going berserk.
Just put lifers and death row inmates in the same prison. Let them run their own society. Treat it like escape from NY. The staff can manage the prison with regards to the basic necessities inmates should have, but all perks are gone.