Charles S Dutton himself spent several years in prison for manslaughter.
Dean Winters wears a cap throughout the episode to hide the long hair he grew for the next episode which takes place ten months later.
Paul Schulze (Officer Rick Heim) and Edie Falco (Officer Diane Whittlesey) went on to star in multiple series together including, HBO's The Sopranos (1999), Showtime's Nurse Jackie (2009) and CBS Tommy (2020).
SORT stands for Special Operations Response Team, which is a unit of the Federal Bureau of Prisons. A SORT unit is designed to be rapidly deployed in response to prison riots, attacks on prison staff or inmates, escapes or attempted escapes, hostage situations and can also be deployed in the event of a terrorist or military attack on the United States.