Two states suspended Scared Straight programs on Friday. California and Maryland prison officials, who welcomed producers of Beyond Scared Straight into their high security facilities, are now backing away from the show and the confrontational diversion program for troubled teens. South Carolina is also reviewing the issue, according to The U.S. Department of Justice is warning state officials that scared straight techniques don’t deter young people from crime, and may make them more likely to offend in the future. An op-ed piece published in the Baltimore Sun this week and written by two Justice Department officials says the agency discourages funding for scared straight-type programs, and states that operate them risk losing their federal funding under provisions of the Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention Act. Episodes of were created inside prisons in California, Maryland and South Carolina for the show that debuted in January on the A&E network.

The Maryland Department of Public Safety and Correctional Services began a review of its diversion programs after inmates were shown touching and grabbing kids in the episode. No complaints were filed but J. Michael Stouffer, Maryland Commissioner of Corrections, decided to review the programs as a precaution, according to the. Another Maryland program that gives teens one-on-one counseling sessions with inmates has also been cancelled.

Two states suspended Scared Straight programs on Friday. California and Maryland prison officials, who welcomed producers of Beyond Scared Straight into their high. PAL Youth Diversion Program. The goal of the program is to show troubled teens the outcome of bad choices and to educate them on the reality of prison life.

On Tuesday that Rhode Island suspended its “Scared Straight” program after state officials learned that children as young as 8 were involved. A drive is calling on the A&E Network to cancel the show and educate the public on the potential dangers of the program. Scared Straight programs, which take at-risk kids to jails in an attempt to frighten them out of a life of crime, are now part of the popular landscape of the U.S. The A&E Network hit ratings gold with its 'Beyond Scared Straight' reality show and 'Saturday Night Live' featured a series of skits spoofing the concept.

But study after study have shown scared straight-type programs to be ineffective at best and counter-productive at worst, actually increasing the likelihood that a kid will one day enter the criminal justice system. So why do parents continue to place their kids in scared straight programs? For more than three years JJIE has provided extensive reporting on the issue.

Read all of it below. About Ryan Schill is the editor of the Juvenile Justice Information Exchange. In 2012 he wrote a comics journalism piece about the ongoing U.S. Talent Dress Up Games.

Immigration debate, published in partnership with Cartoon Movement. His 2011 story about a case of misdiagnosed child abuse won first place in the non-deadline writing category of the Society of Professional Journalists Green Eyeshade Awards for Excellence in Journalism. Ryan is completing his MA in professional writing at Kennesaw State University in Georgia, and has a BS in media studies. His research interests include experimental journalism forms, journalism ethics and philosophy, theories of literary journalism and the intersections of social justice and journalism. I went through a scared straight program in Virginia Beach about 20 years ago or so and I wasn’t a gangster or smart mouth kid that did drugs.