Concerned about high recidivism rates and the dismal conditions of the jails in the community he’d spent his career serving, Arkansas sheriff Eric Higgins had a bold idea: to transform incarceration at Pulaski County Regional Detention Facility in Little Rock, Arkansas, via a social experiment that would offer the men within its walls a true alternative. The process is documented in Unlocked: A Jail Experiment, an eight-episode exploration of what happens when unit cells are unlocked for six weeks, and detainees create community and structure for themselves. The goal was to determine if more autonomy and less control in jails can lead to a more community-oriented living environment and better support one of the fundamental purposes of incarceration: discouraging people from committing future crimes. 

“Pulaski County Regional Detention center is a direct supervision facility, which means the deputies are inside the unit with detainees,” Sheriff Higgins tells Tudum. The facility is the largest of its kind in the state of Arkansas, housing up to 1,200 people on any given day. The security level in each unit varies, and Higgins says that for Unlocked, his goal was to create an environment with less direct supervision. 

 “We thought, ‘What can we do to create some ownership for those detainees in that unit?” Higgins says. “How do we make the facility safer, and what can we do to still hold them accountable but empower them at the same time?’ ”

Higgins says the first step was to remove deputies from the unit, which he hoped would encourage detainees to take more control over their daily routines. He also organized a tier-based structure wherein detainees who demonstrate consistent good behavior receive more benefits, mirrored after a re-entry unit elsewhere in the facility. 

“Our re-entry unit is for detainees who want help with their addiction or other issues they’re dealing with,” Higgins explains. “There’s an interview process — it’s an open-barrack unit, and it’s the safest in our facility. The behavior is better, it was safer, and the facility was cleaner, because they took ownership. Looking at this experiment, we wondered if that was something we could implement; if we could take a typical unit and modify behavior based on a system of responsibility and benefits.”

The experiment needed some fine-tuning. In addition to moving the deputy station out of the unit, the staff installed monitors to ensure outside supervision and safety. As seen in the series, the men who chose to participate in the experiment were also briefed about what to expect.

“We didn't automatically open the doors,” Higgins says. “We talked to them about the possibilities, and about behavior. We gave them a list of responsibilities and [made] personnel available to them to ask more detailed questions” before filming began.

The detainees’ experiences — both positive and negative — are captured in the series. Through candid interviews and unprecedented access to the men living there, Unlocked: A Jail Experiment delves into what happens when its subjects are given greater autonomy, free to come and go from their cells and decide for themselves how certain things in the unit should run. Sheriff Higgins says that, in the face of the unimaginable stressors detainees experience day-to-day, the experiment confirmed his hypothesis. 

“They each have their own issues, whether it’s court, their charges, their contact or lack of contact with family members, their lack of support… all of those things are coming into play,” Higgins says. “They stepped up. They recognized that they can improve their environment. And the majority of the people in the unit did the right thing from Day 1.”

From the outset, it was important to Sheriff Higgins to make sure detainees had a say in whether they wanted to participate in this experiment.

“We had an empty unit that was easy to move people in if they wanted to be part of this,” Higgins says. “Detainees were made aware by the production company that they were going to be recording, and we checked to see if they wanted to be there. At any given time, a person could leave [the experimental unit].”

Ultimately, Sheriff Higgins says he believes the experiment made the unit a better and more secure one, and made Pulaski County Regional Detention a safer facility as a whole. He hopes to keep improving on the experiment — the doors to the unit in the series are still open. Above all, he hopes those who watch the Unlocked experiment unfold will leave their preconceptions aside.

“In this country, we have a certain perception of someone who goes to jail — the assumption being that they’re guilty,” Higgins says. “But they deserve dignity. These individuals, they’re fathers, they’re uncles, they’re sons. People care about them… they’re not just a number. I believe that if you treat people right, and you hold them accountable… I think they take that with them when they walk out of this facility. I think we have proven that people will rise to the expectation.”

Watch Unlocked: A Jail Experiment on Netflix now.