Prison Families

In Episode 1, we meet Brendan, who is counting the days down to his son's Stephen's release from the Midlands Prison. Brendan has been down this road before, as Stephen has spent the vast majority of his young adult life in prison.

In episode two, we meet a down cast Brendan, who hasn't heard from his son Stephen since he kicked him out of the family home for smoking heroin. A habitual drug user Stephen has slipped back into old habits following his recent release from prison.

In this episode we meet Eve, who speaks of her heartache at going up and down to Mountjoy Prison to visit her husband Pascal and the ongoing impact that his serial offending has had on their four children. In the last part of the programme it is revealed that her husband Pascal has recently passed away while in prison.

We meet Nicole Shoer, who is expecting a baby with her partner, who is serving a short sentence in the Midlands Prison. She talks of the trauma of him being first sentenced and her hopes around the new baby, which was due in January 2015. With her partner coming to the end of his sentence around the birth of her baby she is hoping that he might be released at that stage.

Michael Donohue recalls how a childhood incident resulted in his life being changed forever. A run in with the law as a twelve year old boy resulted in his incarceration in a notorious reform school, where he himself was physically and sexually abused. Michael graduated from this school and as an adult served a number of years in prison for a range of criminal offenses.