Raymond Lembecke is a con just out of prison after serving time for selling drugs for his mob boss Tony Vago. (Lembecke was innocent and took the rap for Vago.) Lembecke thinks Vago owes him big time so, when his former boss gets him a measly job in a warehouse, he decides on revenge and plans to steal a million dollars worth of drugs from him.
Four prison inmates have been hatching a plan to literally dig out of jail when another prisoner, Claude Gaspard, is moved into their cell. They take a risk and share their plan with the newcomer. Over the course of three days, the prisoners and friends break through the concrete floor using a bed post and begin to make their way through the sewer system – yet their escape is anything but assured.
Kate Soffel is married to a prison warden in Pittsburgh, and is the mother of their four children. Ed Biddle is a convicted murderer awaiting execution on death row with his brother Jack. When Kate meets Eddie through her Bible readings to the prisoners, she is drawn to him, and they pursue a clandestine relationship. She agrees to help the brothers escape, and begins a treacherous journey with them to freedom in Canada.
After being sent to a detention centre, a teenage skinhead clashes with the social workers who want to conform him to the status quo.
A World War I veteran’s dreams of becoming a master architect evaporate in the cold light of economic realities. Things get even worse when he’s falsely convicted of a crime and sent to work on a chain gang.
A man who spent his formative years in prison for murder is released, and struggles to adjust to the outside world and escape his lurid past. He gets involved with a cheap dancehall girl, and when her protector is accidentally killed, they go on the lam together, getting jobs as farm labourers. But some fellow workers get wise to them.
A young Nigerian student and poet, abused and neglected by his cruel stepmother, finds solace in friendship. His wrongful arrest tests his resilience. A story of survival and redemption.
Sexually abused as a young girl, Kate "Ma" Barker grows into a violent and powerful woman by the 1930s. She lovingly dominates her grown sons and grooms them into a pack of tough crooks. The boys include the cruel Herman, who still shares a bed with Ma; Fred, an ex-con who fell in love with a fellow prisoner; and Lloyd, who gets high on whatever's handy. Together they form a deadly, bizarre family of Depression-era bandits.
The escape of Bubber Reeves from prison affects the inhabitants of a small Southern town.
As a math savant uncooks the books for a new client, the Treasury Department closes in on his activities and the body count starts to rise.
An African-American prison psychiatrist finds the boundaries of his professionalism sorely tested when he must counsel a disturbed inmate with bigoted Nazi tendencies.
When World War II breaks out, two German lovers are cruelly separated. While he is sent to fight at the front, she, a Jewish girl, is sent to a concentration camp where humiliation and death have been elevated to a sinister art.
Five inmates break out of a remote minimum security prison for women. Four are hardened convicts, the fifth was wrongfully convicted. As the authorities chase them down, the cons terrorize or kill anyone who gets in their way.
A single mistake puts a 19-year old girl behind bars, where she experiences the terrors and torments of women in prison.
A renegade federal agent uses a new drug to create an army of unbeatable warriors.
The story of a D.A. who becomes a prison warden and winds up overseeing the sentence of a man he prosecuted.
When Joe Valachi has a price put on his head by Don Vito Genovese, he must take desperate steps to protect himself while in prison. An unsuccessful attempt to slit his throat puts him over the edge to break the sacred code of silence.
An ex-con from Devil's Island enlists the support of the governor's daughter in exposing a prison mining operation.
A constant runaway is given over to the care of the state and finds herself in a remand centre for girls. She is soon caught between the uncaring bureaucracy, the sometimes brutal treatment from her peers and her own abusive family, and only one care worker sees her potential to rise above her tragic circumstances.
Mary Marshall, serving a six year term for accidental manslaughter, is given a Christmas furlough from prison to visit her closest relatives, her uncle and his family in a small Midwestern town. On the train she meets Zach Morgan, a troubled army sergeant on leave for the holidays from a military hospital. Although his physical wounds have healed, he is suffering from post-traumatic stress disorder and is subject to panic attacks. The pair are attracted to one another and in the warm atmosphere of the Christmas season friendship blossoms into romance, but Mary is reluctant to tell him of her past and that she must shortly return to prison to serve the remainder of her sentence.