America's Toughest Prisons

Life inside Detroit's Wayne County Jail, where a radical new scheme offers habitual female offenders a final chance at life on the outside. The inmates, who are often from troubled and violent backgrounds, are put through a stringent retraining programme and offered the chance of early release in the hope they will not reoffend.

Following ex-convict Donovan who, after 14 years in prison, must learn to live on the outside. He is forced to face his family, find work and confront his past, and with two thirds of ex-cons ending up back behind bars, he faces a struggle to resist the temptation of reverting to a life of crime.

New series of the programme that unlocks the truth about some of America's most notorious prisons. This edition focuses on Statesville Prison in Illinois. With violence a constant threat at this maximum-security facility, guards and inmates alike must find ways to cope with daily life.