Inside the World's Toughest Prisons — Season 3
Having experienced firsthand the devastating impact of wrongful conviction – he himself spent years behind bars for a crime he didn’t commit – investigative journalist Raphael Rowe turns his focus to the world's prison systems. This season, Rowe journeys inside facilities across vastly different countries: Colombia, Costa Rica, Romania, and Norway, offering an intimate look at how justice, rehabilitation, and confinement are approached on a global scale. Through immersive access, he explores the stark contrasts in philosophies and practices shaping life behind bars.
Raphael Rowe has spent considerable time incarcerated, but even he admits that La Reforma prison in Costa Rica possesses a particularly daunting atmosphere.
Raphael Rowe’s week within the imposing walls of Bogotá’s prison became a crucible, demanding he navigate a suffocating atmosphere while confronting a palpable sense of impending danger.
Raphael Rowe spent a week within the walls of a maximum-security prison in Craiova, Romania. There, the incarcerated population included those convicted of the most heinous crimes: rapists, murderers, and contract killers.
Most prisons prioritize punishment and the degradation of those incarcerated. Halden Prison in Norway, however – a reality Raphael Rowe is about to witness – operates on a fundamentally different principle.
