Life Inside Lockdown

Life inside one of New York State's largest jails is revealed in a brand new series for ITV.Over 2 x 60 minute episodes, "Life Inside Lockdown" captures the tough conditions at the facility and how both inmates and prison staff deal with the challenges of coping in a highly-pressurised and intimidating atmosphere with little privacy and the ever-present menace of gang rivalries.Beyond the barbed wire fences and maximum security of the jail itself, Voltage TV has been granted the same unprecedented access to the city's County Court, following inmates as they progress through the American justice system. The series will provide an insight into the nature of criminality in the area surrounding the jail. From homeless people committing petty crime to guarantee a bed and meals, to violent gangsters and the multitudes whose crime relates to New York's heroin epidemic, we will see how their daily life plays out in the cells, the kitchens, the yards, community work and even the feared SHU – the Special Housing Unit where inmates live in segregation and almost permanent cell lockdown.Filmed over a six month period, with full access to the jail, officers and inmates, this new ITV series features extraordinary stories, taking viewers to the extremes of humanity as those who claim their innocence battle their way through the ordeal of jail and we witness how the loss of liberty affects their family and friends. Plus, we see the prisons from the perspectives of the correctional officers who have watched inmates come in and out, first as teens and later as men.