"What started out as a joke landed seventeen-year-old Dillon Yates in a lockdown juvenile facility in Boston Harbor. When he set up a prank Twitter account for his vice principal, he never dreamed he could be brought up on criminal charges, but that's exactly what happened. This is Blackburn, Massachusetts, where zero tolerance for minors is a way of life. Leading the movement is tough-as-nails Judge Joe Scali, who gives speeches about getting tough...

A guard at a teen correctional facility who saw the cycle of destructive choice and racial tensions between female teen offenders, decides to do something about it. He gathered African-American, Latina, and white teens, and put together a multi-racial track team behind the bars of the detention center. The experience of belonging to his track team not only broke down the racial divides between the young women, but transformed them, putting them on...

Inmates and prison officials struggle to set the rules inside Hays State Prison in Georgia. An inmate trafficks everything from hard drugs to cell phones through the prison, resulting in a surprise shakedown by special officers and a K-9 unit.

Recounts the time the author, a former British stock broker in Phoenix, spent in the Maricopa Jail, run by Sheriff Joe Arpaio.