BBC Journalist Locked in Miami "Mega Jail" (for Documentary)

By Kyle Munzenrieder Fri., May 20 2011 at 10:10 AM

Categories: Media Watch

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What happens when you mix a proper English gentlemen with some of Miami's most hardened criminals inside of the Pre-Trial Detention Center? Well, it looks like some really, really good television. The BBC recently set their in-house gonzo documentarian Louis Theroux to what they term the "Miami Mega Jail" for a two-part series chronicling one of the city's darkest buildings.

Theroux is something like Britain's answer to Morgan Spurlock and often chronicles the dark underbelly of America for the Brit's viewing pleasures on his BBC2 specials. He's infiltrated our porn industry, tried out for a job at the Home Shopping Network, tagged along with the Westboro Baptist Church, and surrounded himself with 500 pedophiles.

For his latest stunt he apparently decided to tour the Pre-Trial Detention Center for a two-part special set to debut in Britain on Sunday entitled Louis Theroux: Miami Mega Jail.

In a clip just posted to the BBC website, Theroux talks to an inmate who chuckles as he recounts the story of stabbing another inmate about seven times with an ice pick. Theroux asks him why, and the man just says he "throwing down my flag." Whatever the hell that means. The inmate laughs off the incident, and says he didn't know the fate of his victim, and doesn't care.

In another clip posted of Theroux being interviewed on something like the BBC's answer to Good Morning, America, the co-hosts seem absolutely bewildered that the conditions inside the jail are even allowed in America.

Combined with the recent murder of two British tourists in Sarasota, this really can't be good for our tourism industry.

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