In a women's prison, a group of inmates band together to combat the repressive and abusive policies of the crippled female warden and the corrupt prison doctor.
A girl is caught in a drug bust and sent to the hoosegow. The iron-handed female superintendent takes exception to a skit performed by the girls and takes punitive steps, aided by the sadistic doctor who is doing illegal electroshock experiments and raping drugged prisoners. After a while, the prisoners put away their petty differences and plan the Big Prison Escape.—Ed Sutton <[email protected]>
Left to rot in the notorious Connorville Correctional Institute for Women for possession of dangerous drugs and attempted murder, Jacqueline Wilson faces up to 40 years in prison. Now, surrounded by ruthless inmates, surviving is the top priority. However, Jacqueline has already caught the eye of the twisted female Superintendent McQueen and the equally depraved Dr. Randolph, a monster with a penchant for unethical medical experiments and intensive electroshock therapy. Will Jacqueline ever breathe the sweet air of freedom again?—Nick Riganas
The place: Connorville, an American women's prison. The time: now. Petty criminal Jacqueline Wilson, apprehended when her male companion is shot by police, is sentenced and thrown into the penal hell of the Connorville Correctional Institute for Women, a maximum security prison/work camp where the female inmates are torn by frustrated sexual desires and tormented by the cruel injustices of the system as personified by McQueen, the female warden - a voluptuous cripple whose affliction has twisted her mind to the point that she runs her prison like a virtual concentration camp. Aiding her campaign to turn the inmates' existences into an individual living hell is Randolph, the unscrupulous prison doctor who delights in performing "corrective physical therapy" on troublesome inmates, an unorthodox brain operation which leaves its victims mindless vegetables and easy prey to the doctor's warped sexual proclivities. Wilson makes a fast enemy of Maggie, a haughty Black girl who engages her in a violent brawl in the showers to the screeching delight of their stir-crazed onlookers. When Pandora, another Black girl, is tossed naked into solitary confinement on trumped-up charges, her friend Belle risks the same fate to crawl through a vent in the shower room and deliver stolen food to Pandora. Belle is found out when she accidentally kills an elderly prison employee while stealing food, and is dragged kicking and screaming off to the "clinic." Several girls join Maggie in an escape attempt, but only Wilson makes it with her to safety in a truck located in the grove where the prisoners break their backs picking fruit all day while trying to avoid the amorous and overweight male guards. Escaping the guards' gunfire, the girls discover an unexpected common bond and become "good friends." They liberate Wilson's friend Crazy Alice from her physical labors in a massage parlor in a wild fracas with a disgruntled customer who turns out to be an off-duty cop. The trio then decide to rob a bank, the plan almost backfiring when they find a robbery already underway inside the bank. They get the drop on the makeshift bandits and force them into a gun battle with the police while the girls get away with the loot. In a show of spectacular loyalty the girls decide to break back into prison and help their friends escape, which they accomplish by hijacking a prison van with which they gain access. The mad doctor is just a flick of the wrist away from making the final incision into Belle's skull when the girls break in and take both the doctor and McQueen hostage. The entire prison police force is mobilized, but the girls blast their way to freedom as McQueen and the doctor die as they have lived, killed by the bullets of their own corrupt Establishment forces.—-Les Adams <[email protected]>
