The Insider: Reggie Yates in a Texan Jail

In the first of two immersive documentaries for BBC Three, Reggie Yates enters Bexar County Jail in Texas, to experience what it’s like to be an inmate in the American criminal justice system, and understand how prisoners with mental health problems are treated behind bars. As Reggie gets taken to the processing unit, he sheds his identity as he’s stripped, handed a uniform, fingerprinted, and photographed for his mug shot. But at this jail there’s one extra step - a mental health screening. Spending an intense week asking questions from the inside, we see Reggie eat, sleep and work alongside his new inmates in Bexar - where around a quarter of inmates have a diagnosed mental illness. As he comes to learn more about their stories - including their crimes and diagnoses - and meets the guards who are responsible for the day-to-day care of the mentally ill inmates, Reggie questions the system and asks whether a jail can also be a mental health facility. As the week intensifies and he’s introduced to the prison grind, from breakfast or showering to witnessing a dirty protest, how will Reggie cope with being locked up?

America incarcerates more people than any other country in the world . . . and the largest population of inmates are housed in Texas. What’s life really like on the inside, and what’s the real impact of being locked up in America’s criminal justice system?