The Best Prison Docu-series On Netflix: Ranked

The Netflix original series Girls Incarcerated is unique in that not only does it focus on females, but juvenile detention. It takes place at Madison Correctional in Indiana. Oddly enough, it is filmed like a reality show. There is no narrator and instead it is told through testimonials from the students and staff. Some of the girls have blurred faces. It is certainly entertaining but at first, it feels a bit exploitative, like it is “Jersey Shore” behind bars. With teenagers. As an example, the description for the first episode reads: “Brianna likes being a ‘bad girl’ but knows she needs to change. Newcomer Paige rubs feisty Heidi the wrong way.”

Please, please, please, continue watching it though. The characters develop tremendously, and what originally looked like just a documentary is actually a heart-wrenching story of overcoming adversity and true human compassion. It made me want to volunteer to tutor kids in my neighborhood, and I would be surprised if you don’t get the same feeling.

Where to stream Girls Incarcerated

Hard Time is the product of a year long stint by investigative journalists and crew working in Georgia’s maximum security prisons. An interesting part of this series is that viewers meet and follow specific guards and inmates around the state, giving it a narrative feel that makes you want to continue watching. This approach humanizes inmates in a way that many of these docs do not.

Because of the varied format and the profiles of specific inmates and guards, this show is a quick watch. It is punchy and not drawn out. It is the classic prison docu-series, with enough consistency to get attached to the featured people; and enough variety to keep it interesting.

Where to stream Hard Time

Inside the World’s Toughest Prisons is one of the original international prison television exposes. The show has an investigative journalist go into some of the most dangerous and wild prisons in the world. The first season is narrated by Irish journalist Paul Connolly. The second season, which just arrived on Netflix, features English Journalist Raphael Rowe.

In each 50 minute episode, the host spends a week or so actually locked up in a different one of these notorious prisons, not just on a tour. This show, especially the second season, does a great job of giving the viewer a brief introduction to the area or region surrounding the prison, shining a light on how conditions have deteriorated to this current point. The second host, Rowe, was actually wrongfully imprisoned in the UK for 12 years of his life and his experience and point of view give this show an authenticity that many of its counterparts lack.

Where to stream Inside The World's Toughest Prisons

Lock Up: Chain Linked is one of the shows in the Lock Up family. Like all the other shows in the franchise, it profiles a different facility in each episode, usually picking a few inmates and staff members to profile. Many of the stories (if you’ve watched all of the Lock Up episodes) can get a bit repetitive. It has the exact same format and narration as Lock Up: County Jails (and ultimately I’d argue they should be ranked about the same).

Where to stream Lock Up: Chain Linked

The Lock Up franchise has quite a few different variations, many of which are on Netflix. This particular show, Lock Up: County Jails, takes place in various county jails across the country. The men and women staying here are often awaiting trial or sentencing or serving sentences under 24 months. The show stays at each facility for about a month and relies heavily on security camera footage. That’s good for showing events their other cameras couldn’t capture, but it is a little frustrating to watch.

However, because jails, unlike prisons, house both men and women, this show does depict incarcerated women and tells their stories way more effectively than many of the other shows on this list. The different facilities profiled in each episode help the show stay fresh, but it can feel a bit repetitive as many of these places are very similar.

Where to stream Lock Up: County Jails

Lockdown has an unseen narrator and each episode discusses different facets of prison life like gangs, maximum security, and hierarchies within the prison. The show goes to prisons all around the United States and a few abroad. They have one episode highlighting women in prison.

It is a good and informative show with lots of great interviews and testimonials and seemingly unfettered access. However, it shows an obvious bias against inmates – often mislabeling entire prisons as being filled with “violent criminals” when that is rarely, if ever, the case. Additionally, each episode stands alone, as with many of these shows, but that makes it feel overly repetitive and a little slow. To top it all off, the narration is done in the voice of an announcer in an action movie trailer, which can be grating after an episode or two.

Where to stream Lockdown

This BBC show has a characteristically pleasant British narrator. Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail is a limited series that takes place in one of the largest jails in the country in Miami, Florida. The interesting thing about this show is that it follows its narrator and we actually see him being walked around the jail.

In front of the cameras, many of the inmates cover their faces with shirts or hats. Instead of traditional interviews, the show opens with Louis asking an inmate through steel bars about a fight the previous night. When the inmate says “snitches get stitches,” Louis replies with, “do I infer from that then, that the man who was beaten may have been a ‘snitch’?” If that is not the narc-i-est sentence in the history of prison docu-series, then I don’t know what is.

This seems the most immature of all the shows on the list, and the nerdiness of the host can make it a bit too cringy (see pic for proof).

Where to watch Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail