A loving husband and father finds his promising future transformed into a waking nightmare when he's convicted of involuntary manslaughter after accidentally killing the burglar who broke into his home. Sentenced to spend three years in a maximum security prison, Wade (Dorff) finds out it's a place where the rules of society have been all but forgotten. In addition to sharing a cell with a notorious mass murderer (Kilmer), Wade somehow incurs the wrath of the sadistic head prison guard (Perrineau). Now, in order to survive he will have to become the toughest felon of them all.