The film shows the confrontation between Lifers at the New Jersey State Prison and four boys from suburbia. The boys are white and middle class. The prisoners are 85 per cent black. Prison suicides, murders and rapes are commonplace, say the Lifers. A Lifer knew that his teenage son was getting deeper and deeper into crime. He believed that the only way to stop him would be for him to see prison life in the raw, to see the real tragedy of caged men. This was the beginning of a scheme where youngsters are brought into prison and are confronted - shattered some people hope - by the horrors of prison life.