This series recently popped up in my Home feed although I don't know exactly when it was added to Netflix.  It was first aired on PBS in 2019.

This is a documentary by Ken Burns and Lynn Novick (the guys who make legendary war documentary films, primarily) and it follows the life of individuals who have been put in prison for serious offenses and have an opportunity to better themselves by attending classes with the eventual goal being to achieve an Associates degree (2 year degree) or a Bachelors degree (4 year degree) 

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This docuseries is a real eye-opener for those of us, like me, that have actually never been to jail and don't really know anyone who has been there.  I tend to think about the prison system as being a place for horrible people and I think that this is probably true in many instances.  However, as this series carries on it shows that people can change and the reform that is propositioned here makes a lot of sense if you bother to listen to the message.  

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They follow, primarily, 12 different students who are (at the time of filming) currently incarcerated for a variety of offenses as they seek to improve their own lives via education.   I gotta say as someone who attended college and paid for it, each and every one of these men and women at least appear to take the entire process FAR more seriously than I ever did.  Perhaps the lack of booze and other distractions leads them to remain more focused.  

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It is impossible to say whether or not they are "playing to the cameras" but their dedication seems extremely real and they were not studying easy subjects either.  Throughout the production we see them studying English Literature, German studies, Computer Science, advanced mathematics, and Mandarin... just to name a few topics.  

The show is extremely entertaining and kind of makes you think about what we (at least as Americans) might be doing wrong as far as "correctional institutions" are concerned.   For one thing, they present a startling statistic that in New York, the average rate of people who are released from prison only to end up back there again with the general population of prisons, is near 50%.  

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K8ec3QpnaiU

The rate of people who join this program and gain a higher education while incarcerated?  It is 4%.  

It is difficult to argue with those numbers.   

I recall Ricky Gervais saying something along the lines of "prison isn't just about punishment, it is about rehabilitation" and he, and this show, have an excellent point.  If the people in the prison system are given an opportunity to develop life skills aside from crime while on the inside, they may just feel much more compelled to remain on the outside in a legal fashion once they are released.  

This show will have you in tears at certain points but also points out a very important societal issue that I feel should be addressed in America, if not the world.  

It is one of the better documentaries that I have seen in recent times and that doesn't really come as any surprise since Ken Burns is an absolute master at the documentary art.