Through intimate portraits of four exonerated prisoners, journalist Alison Flowers explores what happens to innocent people after the state flings open the jailhouse door and tosses them back, empty-handed, into the unknown. From the front lines of the wrongful conviction capital of the United States Cook County, Illinois investigative journalist Alison Flowers recounts profoundly human stories of reclaiming life, overcoming adversity, and searching for purpose after exoneration. As she tells each exoneree's powerful story, Flowers vividly shows that release from prison, though sometimes joyous and hopeful, is not a Hollywood ending or an ending at all. Rather, an exoneree's first unshackled steps are the beginning of a new journey full of turmoil and uncertainty. Flowers also sheds new light on the collateral damage of wrongful convictions on families and communities, confronting deeper problems of mass incarceration and the criminal justice system.

Through intimate portraits of four exonerated prisoners, journalist Alison Flowers explores what happens to innocent people when the state flings open the jailhouse door and tosses them back, empty-handed, into the unknown. These stories reveal serious gaps in the criminal justice system. Flowers depicts the collateral damage of wrongful convictions on families and communities, challenging the deeper problem of mass incarceration in the United States, vividly showing that release from prison is not always a happy ending, or indeed an ending at all.