| Lockdown America's Hardest Prisons |
|
|---|---|
| Format | Documentary film |
| Starring | None |
| Opening theme | Inmate |
| Country of origin | USA |
| Language(s) | English |
| Production | |
| Producer(s) | Gail Mitchell |
| Running time | 1 hour |
| Broadcast | |
| Original run | – present |
| External links | |
| Website | |
Lockdown is a television series appearing on the National Geographic Channel. The series is an educational look into prisons and jails in the United States, presented in a documentary format. Lockdown is known in some regions as America's Hardest Prisons.
Contents |
Inside the Iowa Fort Dodge Correctional Facility and the Rivers Program to show a look at prison though the eyes of new inmates that have not been before, and a program trying to stop repeat offenders.
NGC brings you firsthand accounts from inmates and correctional officers in a prison where gang leaders have the upper hand and call the shots. At Salinas Valley State Prison in Soledad, California, there are nearly 200 gang-related attacks each year.
Explore the Valley State Prison in Chowchilla, California, a penal complex that has all the hallmarks of a maximum-security prison—violent inmates, overcrowding and a drug trade—but with a unique population: it houses 3,900 violent female offenders.
Go inside a new high-tech Supermax that houses men so dangerous that they must be locked down 23 hours a day. The facility has been specially designed to be "escape free" by building the same security fence Israel put up in the West Bank.
For the most violent, powerful, and infamous inmates, this is the last stop in prison purgatory: Pelican Bay State Prison, California. For two decades it’s been at the heart of California’s war on one of the greatest scourges in America—prison gangs.
Go inside one of the country’s most secure prisons: Oak Park Heights Supermax. Built partially underground, this state-of-the-art fortress houses criminals other prisons can’t handle. Despite cutting-edge technology, the inmates put the prison to the test.
The National Geographic Channel takes you inside Ohio’s Lebanon Correctional Institution. A new inmate and a new officer are thrown into a mix of nearly 2,200 of the state’s most dangerous and conniving criminals.
National Geographic Channel takes you inside the Utah State Prison—home to 4,000 of the state's most dangerous criminals—to show how inmates put their gang first, no matter the cost, even if it results in losing custody of their children. See firsthand how a female inmate—with her parole just weeks away—struggles with competing desires of being faithful to her gang and raising her 3-year-old daughter.
At the Wyoming State Penitentiary (WSP), 30 new correctional officers have one thing in common: none of them have ever worked in a prison before. WSP is chronically and dangerously, understaffed—even the inmates know how dire the situation is. To find new officers, the prison went recruiting in states rife with unemployment. The COs moved to Wyoming for a job. Now, NGC follows three rookies, including a recent college graduate, a carpenter and a 27-year-old mother of two.
Phoenix, Ariz., has one of the largest jail systems in the country, with inmates outnumbering prison cells. To deal with the overflow, the sheriff's office created Tent City on the edge of town. Tent City houses 2,000 inmates in Korean War-era tents. More than 20 felons share a single tent with more arriving every day. Temperatures inside the tents can reach 135 degrees during the summer. Witness firsthand what life is like for inmates and officers in this heated environment.
Imagine trying to study while surrounded by murders, rapists and those who have performed unthinkable acts. At the Ironwood Correctional Facility in California a group of inmates face this challenge on a daily basis while participating in a college education program founded and run by inmates. In Lockdown, inmates provide firsthand accounts of how important it is for them to graduate from "Inmate U," despite facing stiff opposition from their gangs and frequent prison-wide lockdowns.