This eye-opening six-part series gives viewers powerful insight into mass incarceration by focusing on the criminal justice system’s “front door” — the county jail — and the profit-driven model that ensnares ordinary people over and over. The series takes a strictly observational approach and narrows in on two key days in an inmate’s life: the first, when they desperately try to come up with money to buy their freedom, and the last, when they must start rebuilding the life that incarceration destroyed.
“The series offers a fresh take on the ‘reality behind bars’ genre of documentary storytelling…The result is a surprisingly moving, insightful survey of the American criminal justice system through the microcosm of Georgia’s Gwinnett County Jail.”
— The Daily Dot
“[First and Last] opens a murky window not just into the operation of a place like Gwinnett County Jail, but into the heart of a culture that incentivizes illegal activity and self-destructive behavior.”
— Ready Steady Cut
“The series takes aim at our hidden tendency to outcast, target and stereotype those who have been incarcerated, and through expert storytelling and raw emotional interviews, it effectively breaks this social tendency.”