Inside the World's Toughest Prisons (Seasons 1–7)

"Inside the World's Toughest Prisons" (2016) — watch online on iFILM. British documentary series following crime journalist Raphael Rowe as he checks into maximum-security facilities across the globe — not as a reporter, but as a prisoner.

Rowe spends days inside, sleeping in cells, eating prison food and talking to inmates whose lives play out entirely behind bars. The series visits institutions in South America, Eastern Europe, Africa and Southeast Asia, each episode revealing a different hierarchy of survival. Paul Connolly fronted the earlier seasons; Rowe, who spent more than a decade behind bars for crimes he always maintained he did not commit, brought a different weight to the access once he took over.

The gap between journalism from outside a cell and journalism from inside one is the whole point of the series. Stream all episodes of "Inside the World's Toughest Prisons" online on iFILM.