"Wabash Valley Correctional Facility in Indiana, USA, is a maximum security prison where the worst criminal offenders are kept. The series shadows the prisoners, guards, medical staff and visitors to the facility, capturing violent outbursts, intimate moments, tense situations and the constant struggle for order. Nurse Marla Gadberry cops verbal abuse, sexual taunts and human waste as she does her rounds. Tension is high as the deadline for an inmate's threat to kill himself draws close. The stabbing of a child killer in the yard by prisoners close to a white supremacy group is investigated and the cameras confront one of the attackers involved in this chilling incident. There's also the high octane machismo and grunt of the annual weight lifting competition as inmates battle to achieve the title of the prison's strongest man. This night of nights is disrupted when an inmate is overpowered by guards outside the gym when he refused to return to his cell. Life in America's Hardest Prisons is anything but dull."