The first of the series is a crash course in how to survive your time inside. Hydebank houses around 100 young male offenders and also suspects including those on remand. For broadcaster Stephen Nolan, the story often ends when the young offender is locked up, but in this series he has gained exclusive access to find out what happens after the cell door shuts.
Stephen Nolan enters the prison and experiences what it is like when the doors are locked. He walks the corridors and enters the cells, talking with the inmates, sharing their daily routines, uncovering truths about abuse and fractured home lives. He challenges them about responsibility to their victims and finds out why they felt they were compelled to do the things they did. Episode Two opens with a surprise prison lockdown and search by officers for a missing knife and any illegal drugs.
Social deprivation, drugs abuse, poverty and mental health issues are cited as the overwhelming reasons why young men end up in places like Hydebank and why over half of them reoffend within a year of leaving prison. In the final episode we follow some of the inmates as they prepare for release, their exit from prison and then how they acclimatise to life on the ‘outside' as they try to adjust to life away from Hydebank.