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Friday, February 04, 2011

Maryland & California Suspend 'Scared Straight' Programs

Maryland and California prison officials said Friday they have suspended youthful offender diversion programs featured on the television show "Beyond Scared Straight" after the U.S. Justice Department warned they could lose federal funding.

The A&E series, which started Jan. 13, is produced by Arnold Shapiro, maker of the Emmy- and Oscar-winning 1979 television special, "Scared Straight." Like that show, it documents visits by troubled teenagers to prisons where intimidating inmates deliver in-your-face lectures about the harshness of life behind bars.

A prison agency spokesman in South Carolina, the only other state featured on the A&E Network series, said the diversion program will be reviewed by the state's incoming corrections chief.

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