Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail

What I always enjoy about Louis' documentaries is the constructive curiosity he approaches his subject matter with while remaining perfectly humble; That still doesn't prevent him from slipping past a question or two that underline how he feels about it. Most of these convicts hardly deserve my sympathy, yet some of their intuitive remarks really make you wonder how their life would've turned out had someone been there to guide them to the opposite side of the moral spectrum.

Louis being Louis. He visits a rape haven/jail and a boot camp for idiotic teenagers who's parents didn't listen to Bill Cosby. As with all Theroux docs it's highly entertaining but doesn't really break any new ground. A lot of the guys will piss you off cause they don't posses any semblance of logic but the guy who is convicted of the triple murder was incredibly sympathetic and interesting, just got dealt a bad hand and had no parents to show him how a man is supposed to act.

United States! Good God! You're a mess!

A nice documentary on the jail lifestyle. It truly was had nice pace, great interviews and lots of insight.

One of Louis' better effort, probably due to the run time.

Thank's Louis, but I'm from the good ol' USA, I already know Florida is fucked.

Two hours of morons answering questions with the same tedious responses. We do see a variety of prisoners but they mostly spout the same old crap, with only a couple of them straying from the party line and speaking more openly. The snippets of genuine intrigue (the fact most of the inmates are waiting out their trials voluntarily, and a 14-year-old who's refused education on 'safety' concerns) aren't followed up. A missable Theroux that mostly fails to communicate the horror of its subject.

Heartbreaking to hear some of the guy's stories about being locked up basically since they were 12 years old.

It's possible to tire of the subject matter before the end of the two hour runtime, but Louis' often unbiased approach reveals some interesting moral murkiness.

Many of the appalling and disturbing aspects of life in such institutions are vividly on display here, with the presenter drawing particular attention to the obvious fact that the Hobbesian "culture" of jail life is to a significant extent a result of the process of institutionalisation itself.