Toronto, 1961: Emily Radcliffe works as an editorial assistant at Chatelaine magazine, surrounded by a group of the best women journalists in the country, whose articles tackle the controversial topics no other women’s publication dares to touch. When a bombshell letter lands on Emily’s desk from an inmate at the notorious Mercer Women’s Prison, Emily sees a scoop that could launch her career as a real, hard-boiled journalist like the colleagues she admires. After convincing her boss to let her cover the story, Emily goes undercover in the prison to learn whether the shocking claims in the inmate’s letter are true. But what she doesn’t know is that getting into the prison will turn out to be the easy part; it’s getting back out that will be difficult. 

Huron County, 1996: Rachel Jamieson spends her days working at a small-town cemetery, alone amid the peace and quiet. As an anxious and introverted person, the solitude of the job suits her just fine. But when one of her staff stumbles across an unmarked grave containing the remains of a woman in an old prison uniform, Rachel’s work takes a sinister turn. While she assists the police in uncovering the woman’s identity and how she came to be buried in a secret unmarked grave, trauma from Rachel’s past threatens to surface from where she’s kept it carefully hidden.

Inspired by the real-life Toronto women’s prison that was the first of its kind in Canada, as well as true figures and events, Liberty Street vividly brings to life the historic treatment of mentally ill and incarcerated women while shining a light on the dark realities of various ‘prisons’ that hold women captive.