The three new films will explore the damaging and destructive effects of murder, sex trafficking and opiate dependency in American cities.

Louis Theroux said: “I immerse myself in some of the most dysfunctional and disturbing aspects of American society. They combine hard-hitting actuality with intimate interviews.

"I have been granted access to the police in several states; I've got to know the people affected by crime; and I've also spent time with the perpetrators of crime, with the idea of understanding the causes of it, both on a systemic level and also in a very personal way.”

Patrick Holland, Channel Controller, BBC Two, says: “This is so exciting. It is always a real event to have a new series from Louis on BBC Two.

"This trilogy promises to be hugely timely and challenging - it has never been more important to engage with the forces shaping modern America.”

Louis Theroux: Murder In Milwaukee

The documentary follows the destructive gun crime, escalating homicide rates and the conflict between African American communities and the police in one of the most racially divided and impoverished cities in America. 

In Murder In Milwaukee, Theroux visits the Milwaukee Police Department and patrols District 5 with the Homicide division, the home of some of the most dangerous streets in the US with homicide rate over 12 times the national average.

He hears from both sides of the contention and integrates himself within the families and local social activists who have lost loved ones to acts of violence, and explores the community who are often misunderstood and mistrustful of the police force.

Theroux arrives in Milwaukee at a time of high tension between the police and the African American community, heightened by a recent police shooting, and uses his familiar approach to uncover truths and misconceptions between the groups of people separated by disharmony. 

Louis Theroux: Sex Trafficking Houston

Theroux spends time with American women working in the sex industry in Houston, Texas, where it is estimated that at least one in five of all of the country’s victims are trafficked through the city and forced to work in the sex industry.

Sex Trafficking Houston explores the complex relationship between pimp and prostitute and uncovers the people who exist in the subculture that clashes with society's norms and the criminal justice system. 

Theroux seeks to understand the people who are part of this subculture in the fourth largest city in the US, as well as the law enforcement and the county jail, who are struggling between helping women remove themselves from the exploitative lifestyle while at the same time criminalising them.

Louis Theroux: Opiate City

Opiate City explores the damaging effects of America's crackdown on prescription painkillers, which has left many of the two million Americans addicted to high-strength pills turning to heroin.

The deadly drug now claims more lives in America than either car accidents or gun crime and largely contributes to the decline in life expectancy in the US.

Theroux immerses himself in an Appalachian community at the heart of the nation's heroin epidemic in Huntington, West Virginia, which is being torn apart by the increase of heroin use - with one in ten babies born addicted to opiates and a fatal overdose rate 13 times the national average.

Theroux follows the emergency services who respond multiple overdose call-outs per day and spends time with a community of users who have become victims of the drug's addiction and are struggling to maintain their everyday lives.