If you go to jail, you probably expect to spend a whole lot of time being told what to do — when to go to bed, when to wake up, when to eat, when to work. It’s jail, after all.
But, for a group of inmates at the Pinal County Adult Detention Center in Florence, they got the chance to run their pod themselves. And it was all filmed for Netflix.
Pinal County Sheriff Ross Teeple spoke in the trailer for Season 2 of Netflix’s "Unlocked," which was filmed over six weeks in early 2025, just after the new sheriff took office.
The Show spoke with Teeple about what it was like to adopt this unconventional approach to corrections — and if he thinks it led to any changes in his jail. He spent 12 years working as a correctional officer where, as he described it, he learned “verbal judo.”
Full conversation
ROSS TEEPLE: When you're in the jail, you don't have a firearm. You have yourself and your verbal judo to talk and communicate with the population inside there.
LAUREN GILGER: Verbal Judo, I have not heard it described that way like that. Tell us, you know, how does a jail environment like this usually run? Because this, I think it'll probably illuminate how different this experiment was. Like are inmates pretty much locked down all the time in pods like this?
TEEPLE: Yes, ma'am. And that was one of the big things is, as I, I'm a little older, I started in corrections in 1996. We're now in 2026. And for the most part, we still do corrections the same way. Now is what we did back then.
And corrections is good. There are people that do truly bad things, and we need to lock them up and throw away the key. But the majority of the people that stay at a county jail, we're not talking to prison.
GILGER: Right.
TEEPLE: Like as an example, the average length of stay for someone in the Pinal County Jail is 19 days
GILGER: Right.
TEEPLE: So we have 19 days to effect change before this individual comes back. And they're now your neighbor. They're now a member of your community. And I did not see the advantage of, if we only have someone for 19 days locking them down, telling them when to get up, when to eat, when to go back to their cells and when to do everything. And then they become what we call on corrections institutionalized, right?
They can't independently think for themselves. And then they go out to society and we find out maybe that's why they're re-offending is because now they have to think for themselves. So that was the big thing with the experiment, was allowing them to make the correct choices. And that way when they go back out and they're your neighbor and my neighbor, they are hopefully a better member of society.
GILGER: Right, And there's this scene where you kind of presented this experiment to these inmates in this pod. And what did you tell them, like, how was this going to work from your point of view?
TEEPLE: One of the things, and this is admittedly, some of my bias was working with, because my experience was at the Arizona Department of Corrections. So they're all convicted felons doing hard time. And so I carried a little about that bias in there. And so I wanted them to know this is not a rewards program. This is a responsibility program. And I need you to tell me what realistically, you need to make yourself a better person.
One inmate in particular, he had never balanced a checkbook in his life. He had never been taught how to. He was a high school dropout and had never balanced a checkbook. Well, great. When he came to me with that, he's like, hey, this is going to sound stupid. And then when he told us, that's absolutely not stupid, that's a life skill that we can definitely get you trained up on.
GILGER: Yeah. So, I mean, you had six weeks, 53 inmates, other than I think they kind of cycled in and out, right. But you basically unlocked the doors in this certain pod and let the inmates figure out how to run things themselves. I mean, tell us, like, what happened initially, was it hard before it got better?
TEEPLE: Yes. And it was hard before it got better. And there were at least one time where it got hard again. But I'll let the viewers watch Episode 6 to know what I'm talking about.
One of the big things that when I saw that, yes, maybe we are affecting a change is letting them decide when to go to bed. When we first started this experiment, the younger population, as you can imagine, wanted to stay up 24/7.
Well, the older population and the working population, because there are inmates, when they're in jail, they can get a job like working in the laundry room, right? They could be a porter. They could work in the kitchen preparing the food. Well, to feed breakfast in my jail, the kitchen workers have to get up at 3:30 in the morning.
GILGER: Right.
TEEPLE: That was the point where I thought, yeah, we're going to learn some stuff from this, because it was then that said we would actually like the lights shut off from this time to this time. So the people that have to get up early can get. And that was a choice that they made.
GILGER: Right. So the first kind of sign of hope for you, but there's quite a risk in this, right. Like in unlocking the doors and kind of only surveilling them by camera. Like, were you worried at points? Did you think maybe this isn't going to work?
TEEPLE: Yes, ma'am. Yeah.
GILGER: What happened?
TEEPLE: There's one particular incident. Some people don't have very good, they have anger, impulse issues, I should say. And that's one of the things that you have to worry about.
One of the things I think they mentioned in the first program is Arizona, the inmates control themselves through fear and intimidation. And that that was one of the things that I had trepidation about was, is if we lock this down and we give them, is that going to happen here?
There was some flexing going on in the beginning, but we always had to keep that in the back of our minds because ultimately, the safety of my staff and the inmates, it takes priority over the experiment.
GILGER: Yeah. So you mentioned that this was not your idea to do this show. You, you know, we're already given this as you entered office last year from the Board of Supervisors in Pinal County. I wonder, you know, what you think of the idea of putting this on television?
Like, do you hope it teaches people something about the way that a jail runs or the people who end up in it?
TEEPLE: Yes. I just want it to be a more eye-opening experience for people. And knowledge is power. One of the things that I've actually already received a social media message from a person that reached out, I guess they've already watched two episodes and they said, now I understand what my son is going through. And that was to me I was like, OK, that point made right there, that one person at least getting knowledge of what their family member goes through.
GILGER: Yeah. Yeah. Let me ask you lastly about kind of lessons learned, I guess, like after a career in law enforcement. And as you're taking the helm in Pinal County now, I wonder, you know, will you take lessons from this kind of radical experiment going forward and change the way things are run in the jail?
TEEPLE: Yes, ma'am. There were some things that were just not economically feasible for us to continue on the long term and still be fiscally responsible to the citizens of Pinal County. But I will tell you that many of the lessons that we learned with this experiment, we've continued on with. And one of our next steps says is to expand it to the female pod.
if someone wanted to drive by 971 Jason Lopez Circle and look at the construction fence that's around the front of my jail right now, they can see that this experience has provided us with the opportunity to now build a reentry center onto the front of the jail, and the state is funding it, and we're building a reentry center.
One of the big things is, when you arrest somebody for 19 days, they're in our jail. And when they get released, this is pretty much any jail. When someone's arrested, they're usually not arrested. On the best day of their lives. They're usually not wearing the best clothing, and they're not prepared to go to jail.
Under normal circumstance, they get arrested, their personal property gets zipped up into plastic, and they go to jail. And then when they get released, they get that property in the plastic and they are released out into society.
GILGER: Right.
TEEPLE: When an inmate gets released, they have to go through the section that provides them with substance abuse knowledge and training and locations that they want. They might go to somewhere.
Number one thing that people violate their probation on is not making their probation appointments. Well, did we check to see if this individual knows how to read so they can read where their probation officer is?
So those are the types of resources we're giving them as they leave. If they've got body excrement on their clothes the night they're arrested, let's get them different clothing for them to walk out of the jail with.
GILGER: Yeah. So quite a big change that sounds like that this program and this experiment that you conducted with Netflix here seems to have spurred.
TEEPLE: Yes, ma'am.
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