Viewers couldn’t help but be fascinated, as well as appalled, by what they saw on ITV’s new series Life Inside Jail: Hell On Earth.

Following the day-to-day lives in Albany County Jail in New York, the programme – which aired on Tuesday evening – showed what really goes on in the prison where some of the state’s most dangerous criminals live behind bars.

But while the scenes were pretty terrifying, UK viewers sitting safely in front of their TV screens couldn’t help being intrigued by the insight into the inmates’ minds…

Some of the most astounded comments came after narrator Sean Bean (yep, we weren’t expecting that, either) introduced us to 29-year-old gangster, Mike Turner. Facing a charge of attempted murder, Turner had already served time in Rikers Island jail and showed no regrets for his crimes.

Describing his “gang member” lifestyle as all about “having fun” one officer said that Turner arrived at Albany determined to be seen as a “f****ing bad-ass.”

Talking about the moment he was Tasered for refusing to return a plastic meal tray to officers and then attempting to attack them, he openly admitted: “I feel like a superhero. If I had a weapon, I would have tried to kill someone, that’s a fact.”

He also added his personal philosophy on life in jail, explaining: “You’re either going to be the sheep or you are going to be the bull. I’m not going to be the sheep.”

It was an attitude that Twitter just did not understand…

But there were some people that we could not help feeling sorry for, namely inmate and mother Tammy who was locked up for five years after crimes committed in connection with her serious heroin habit.

Desperate to still be a positive role model to her children, she read a letter from one of her daughters, who also spent a night behind bars, that said: “I see change in you. You are coming back to life. I am glad to call you mommy.”

But it wasn’t all an emotional roller-coaster. Some people couldn’t contain themselves over the unexpected, and almost comical moment, when we heard the story of a new inmate who, after telling officers he was hungry during a strip-search, pulled a hotdog out of his, well, you can probably guess…