Boys Banged Up

Episode Two opens with a surprise prison lockdown and search by officers for a missing knife and any illegal drugs. Prisoners claim these substances are readily available inside. Many inmates also claim that a lot of their crimes were done under the influence of drugs. They are challenged about responsibility to their victims and why they felt they were compelled to do the things they did.

Hydebank Wood Prison in Northern Ireland houses around 100 young offenders and also suspects including those on remand. Most of the convicted inmates are aged between 18 to 21 and have committed offences ranging from theft to murder. After a number of heavily critical reports, the prison was given a complete overhaul and rebranded itself as a secure training college. Now, prisoners are now called 'students', staff are called by their first names and almost all inmates spend their day involved in 'purposeful' activity, training or education. Nevertheless, it is still a prison, so when classes end, for these students, it is back to sleep in their cells.

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 re-offend 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.