Vanessa is pregnant, addicted to heroin, has already lost custody of her other children, and if she gives birth in jail, she will lose this baby too.

A transgender inmate Franklin is the resident prison ladies' man, and has fallen for fellow jailbird Leslie; Baby D continues to throw her weight around, until things comes to a head over a carton of milk.

Missy has a sugar daddy who visits her every week, but to get her kids back she needs to be able to give up the drugs and money; Franklin and Leslie's romance continues.

Phlebotomist Julia has been charged with the murder of her ex-boyfriend. Now, she has to learn to navigate jail for the first time; inmate Rachel fails a drug test, and the full weight of prison rule comes down on her.

The series begins in the jail’s intake area - fresh off the streets, the women here can be drunk, high or suffering from mental health problems. With inmates detoxing from heroin, crack, and crystal meth, medical emergencies are a regular occurrence. When travelling musician and drug user, Carmen, goes into multiple seizures, officers call a ‘Code Blue’ medical emergency, meaning jail staff and paramedics scramble to respond. It’s not just Carmen though - across the pod, women are at different stages of withdrawal, including grandmother Danette and addict Natasha, who is having a serious panic attack as she detoxes in her cell. Downstairs, the jail’s Transitional Housing Unit (THU) couldn’t be more different. Here, inmates taking vocational courses can sunbathe and socialise, and enjoy meals prepared by fellow-inmates in the jail’s culinary programme. Young mum, and crystal meth addict, Erica, is working to turn her life around, but the THU has a strict zero-tolerance policy towards any kind of rule breaking – can she live up to the high expectations, and how would she cope if she was thrown back into the main jail?

The jail’s most violent and anti-social inmates are housed in Ocean, the jail’s segregation pod. When one of the women here assaults Officer Cortes in an unprovoked attack, all available staff are scrambled to restrain the struggling inmate. While deputies and the medical team remain on standby, Sergeant Clayton investigates what happened. Close friends Lo and Kayla have been separated by jail staff, who suspect them of having a romantic relationship. Breaking jail rules, however, is part of their fun and, unknown to officers, they keep their relationship alive, communicating across the jail in a number of secret ways. Satanist Olga is having difficulty practising her religion behind bars. Dependent on a homemade spirit board, she believes it’s her relationship with Satan that gives her the strength to carry on. With a young child offering a glimpse of a fresh start on the outside, will her unusual outlook help her to navigate through the challenges of jail life?