An undercover cop shoots at three criminals as they run from a house. After one of her cohorts is shot and the other jumps a fence, Jaclyn Wilson is arrested and sentenced to ten to forty years for drug possession and acting as an accessory to attempted murder. Wilson later arrives, along with two other inmates, at a women’s prison, where they strip naked in front of Doctor Randolph who inspects them for concealed narcotics and weapons. At the cafeteria, Wilson meets fellow inmates, Belle and Pandora. When she complains of claustrophobia, Pandora warns Wilson not to become like another inmate, Bonnie, who started out with claustrophobia but now walks around in a perpetual stupor. One night, Wilson wakes up screaming from a nightmare in which a demented Randolph pursued her with a medical instrument. The following day, the inmates visit the “agricultural training grounds.” On the way, Pandora tells Wilson that she is in prison for assault with a deadly weapon, and that she cut off her victim’s testicles. Later, Pandora and Belle perform a variety show for the other inmates and the handicapped warden, Superintendent McQueen, who later reprimands them for the performance, and presents a pornographic picture belonging to Pandora that was found in a routine search. The warden then places Pandora in solitary confinement on a limited diet for several days. During shower time, Maggie, an outspoken inmate, and Wilson engage in a fistfight while Belle pries open a grate covering an air duct. The fighting inmates later report to McQueen in her office. There, the warden warns Wilson to behave after she expresses disapproval over Pandora’s punishment. Sometime later, Wilson’s cellmate, Lavelle, explains the crime that put her in jail. She stabbed a man who raped her friend, but, because the rapist happened to be a powerful politician, she was sentenced to life for first-degree murder. During another shower time, Belle sneaks through the open air duct and crawls to the kitchen to steal food, which she drops, along with other supplies, through the ceiling into Pandora’s solitary cell. As Maggie, Wilson, and another inmate help prepare food in the kitchen, a guard passes through and drops a cockroach into Maggie’s soup. Maggie responds by dumping soup onto the guard’s shoe, inciting a fight. Maggie steals the guard’s gun and attempts a jailbreak, with Wilson and another inmate close behind. However, guards shoot, and one inmate is killed. Later, Maggie and Wilson wait in an office. When Wilson demands to see McQueen, guards take her into the clinic instead, where Randolph administers electroshock therapy. That night, Maggie paces, fearful that the warden will also subject her to the treatment. Belle tries to cheer Wilson up in her cell. After Wilson, dazed from the shock therapy, finally responds, Belle begs her to stay out of trouble. The next morning, Wilson and Maggie hear their names called over the loudspeaker, as a guard orders them to report to the clinic after agricultural therapy. Belle goes to the kitchen to steal more food, but an old kitchen matron catches her. When Belle covers the woman’s mouth and asks her to keep quiet, the matron faints and dies. Guards arrive and immediately seize Belle, assuming she killed the woman. That day, as they work in an orchard at agricultural therapy, one of the inmates pretends to fall from a ladder. When a guard comes to her aid, Maggie steals his gun. As women run away, guards shoot and hit Maggie’s accomplice. Wilson and Lavelle join in the escape; however, when Maggie steals a truck, only Wilson makes it inside before she drives off. Stopped at a gas station, Wilson and Maggie see a police car. When the police officer goes to the bathroom, the girls steal his car and use it to pull over a family, switching cars once again. The escaped convicts go to a brothel where Maggie’s friend, Crazy Alice, works. As an undercover cop attempts to arrest Crazy Alice for prostitution, the girls attack and steal his gun. At the prison, McQueen talks with Randolph about the safety of an operation he plans to conduct on Belle to curb her violent tendencies. Randolph assures McQueen that Belle will be forever mellowed, and the warden asks him to make sure Belle signs the “voluntary” release. Later, in the clinic, Randolph forces a confused Belle to sign the medical release for her psychosurgery. Meanwhile, McQueen orders Lavelle to take a job at the clinic, as punishment for aiding Maggie’s escape, and instructs her to be observant of Randolph. Once at the clinic, Lavelle spies and finds Randolph groping Belle, who is barely conscious, and taking pictures of her naked body. Elsewhere, Maggie waits in a car as Wilson and Crazy Alice walk into a bank during a robbery. The women shoot at the robbers, and steal the cash themselves. When police arrive, the officers follow the original robbers as they drive off, leaving the women to make a clean getaway. At his office, Randolph explains to Lavelle the surgery he plans to perform. To curb Belle’s violent tendencies, he will cut out a certain part of her brain. Concerned, Lavelle seeks out Pandora to warn her about Belle’s upcoming surgery. At their hideout, Wilson offers Maggie and Crazy Alice money to help her go back to the prison and release the other women. Some time later, a guard driving new inmates to the prison sees Crazy Alice lying by the highway and pulls over. Maggie then appears, wielding a gun, but the guard shoots her in the arm. Wilson and Crazy Alice steal the truck, taking Bernice, a prison worker, hostage in the process. At the prison gates, Bernice facilitates the women’s entry. As Randolph preps Belle for surgery, Pandora shows up with a fake injury, then threatens the doctor with a knife and orders him to revive Belle. McQueen interrupts moments before Wilson arrives with a gun. Lavelle reveals Randolph’s dirty pictures to McQueen, while another inmate puts tape over the warden’s mouth. Crazy Alice and Wilson drive the truck out of the prison, with Belle, Lavelle, and Pandora in back, along with McQueen, Randolph, and Bernice. On the side of the highway where Maggie awaits her accomplices, state troopers appear and shoot at the prison truck, hitting McQueen and Randolph inside. The inmates fire back, slide into a getaway car, and drive down the highway.