After the success of this project, Michael Mann received over two dozen offers to direct projects. He turned them all down to do Thief (1981).
Filmed at Folsom Prison in California, many actual prisoners appeared on camera. One of those prisoners acted as a bodyguard for Peter Strauss.
During the shoot in Folsom, there were thirteen stabbings and one murder among the inmates, but not a single crewmember was injured or threatened over the course of the production, and no one ever witnessed any violence.
Shot in 21 days with a budget of $1.1 million.
Murphy's line 'Are you gonna tell me they invented a hard time you can't handle?' is almost exactly the same as Beedan's (Dennis Haysbert) line 'There ain't been a hard time invented that I cannot handle' in Heat (1995), also written and directed by Michael Mann. A variation of the line is also found in Swan Song (1980) when Jesse (David Soul) says "They haven't invented the hard time that I ain't prepared to handle." Swan Song features a script co-written by Mann. The line is also used by Gina (Saundra Santiago) in an episode of Miami Vice (1984) (Give a Little, Take a Little (1984)) and by Julie Torello (Darlanne Fluegel) in the pilot episode of Crime Story (1986); both shows were executive produced by Mann.