Metacritic reviews

It’s an alarming indictment of the way we’ve been taught to think, and where that warped thinking has put millions of our fellow citizens.

While a fair amount of its subject matter overlaps with Ava DuVernay's incendiary "13th," Matthew Cooke's "Survivors Guide to Prison" nevertheless serves as a valuable primer for those estimated 13 million Americans who are arrested every year.

Survivors Guide to Prison demonstrates just how seriously even a blameless citizen should take every interaction with the police.

Thankfully, Cooke crams in so much persuasively appalling information — especially during a tangential aside on mentally ill patients’ high death rates — that it’s easy to forgive him for seemingly trying to push all viewers’ proverbial buttons at once.

If ever a proselytizing documentary could be described as assaultive, Survivors Guide to Prison might sport that label as a badge of honor.