Inside The World's Toughest Prisons Season 6

Raphael Rowe is the ideal host for "Inside the World's Toughest Prisons" because, as a profile in Express notes, he spent 12 years behind bars himself. Rowe was wrongfully convicted of murder and robbery back in 1988, but he's turned that horrifying experience into an exciting new career. As Rowe clarified, he's not visiting these prisons as a journalist, but as an unbiased observer. "From the moment I step out of that van, those guards treat me like any other prisoner," he explained. Rowe starts each visit handcuffed in the back of a police van. He has no security, and ventures inside accompanied only by a couple camera operators and occasionally either a fixer or translator, depending on the situation.

Rowe has met some of the most violent criminals in the world, but he's still learning from his experiences, admitting of his visit to the notorious Tacumbú penitentiary in Paraguay, "I had never seen anything like [it]." The intrepid reporter, who studied journalism while locked up, had his own conviction overturned in July 2000. "It's scarred me for life," Rowe admitted, "the psychological and physical harm of being in prison for a crime I didn't commit." Rowe didn't take on hosting "Inside the World's Toughest Prisons" lightly but, as he points out, "Nobody has taken the unique journey I have," which makes him the ideal host for this show.