AllMovie

Filmmaker Brent Huffman presents a documentary that aims to prompt debate about the dehumanizing elements of the criminal justice system with this look at life in the bleak confines of Ohio's Warren Correctional Institution. In detailing the day-to-day happenings at Warren from the perspectives of both the guards and the inmates, Huffman presents a balanced study of the damaging effect of extended monotony and confinement on the human spirit. From the ways in which inmates struggle to maintain a sense of self in an environment where identity is stripped at the door to the frontline sociology of guards who are forced to remain aware of their surroundings every second of the day, Huffman's trip behind bars is as sobering as it is enlightening.