Episode list

Inmates at the Valley State Prison for Women use a combination of confrontation, information, and communication to try to keep five young girls from becoming convicts.

Five at-risk girls are subjected to a terrifying simulation of the degrading process of entering a female prison. Four friends, busted together for shoplifting, have a unique opportunity to jointly discover the horror of prison life. The prison tour reaches its greatest emotional impact when teens open up to the inmates, causing one girl to reveal a tragic secret.

Hardened criminals at the California prison that is home to Charles Manson give teens a taste of life on the yard, where any prisoner can approach the kids and give them a feel for the dangers of prison life. The teens include Stephen, 16, a violent youth who threatens his teachers; Josh and Armando, 16, twin brothers and gang members; Elijha, 15, a car thief; and Abraham, 16, who thinks that going to jail is no big deal.

In this episode six teens, some of whom have already served time in Juvenile Hall, get a dose of grown-up prison life at the Lieber Correctional Facility in South Carolina. The inmate-run "Operation Behind Bars" program puts the teens in tiny cells and introduces them to "Lock-Up," the prison within a prison for the worst inmates. The most shocking moments come when the prison's murderers and thieves tell the kids their personal stories.

Viewers go into one of the nation's most infamous prisons to see how four teens who have already been involved in crime react to experiencing prison life first-hand. They stand outside Death Row, experience the taunts of prisoners in overcrowded cells, and hear the inmates tell them that fear is everywhere in the prison, and violence is around every corner.

Maryland inmates give a group of five at-risk teens a taste of prison when they are forced to eat "Lock-up Loaf," a brick of baked mush served to unruly prisoners. The teens include, Shane, 17, a violent youth who is surprised he hasn't killed anyone, Garrett, 13, who has been kicked out of eight schools already, Brandy, 16, who skips school to smoke pot, her brother Shawn, 15, who protects Brandy at any cost and Richard, 18, a towering jock who drinks, blacks out and awakens bloodied from brawling.

Five at-risk girls are subjected to a terrifying simulation of the degrading process of entering a female prison. Four friends, busted together for shoplifting, have a unique opportunity to jointly discover the horror of prison life. The prison tour reaches its greatest emotional impact when teens open up to the inmates, causing one girl to reveal a tragic secret.

In Charlotte, NC, a group of at-risk teens, including a wannabe gangster and a drug dealer, is taken to Mecklenburg County Jail. Jose, the most defiant teen, goes head-to-head with terrifying inmates and one of the toughest female jail deputies Beyond Scared Straight has come across, Sgt.Garrett. When Jose finally refuses to follow an order, Sgt. Garrett makes it her mission to break Jose down.

Fourteen year-old Joseph, an explosive giant who attacks his adopted parents, may have finally met his match in the hardened inmates and officers of the Oakland County Jail near Detroit, Michigan.

An at-risk teen, with dreams of a rap career, gets a wake-up call win he sees where his love of drugs and gang activity will lead, during a visit to the Portsmouth County Jail in Virginia.

Where once it stood for cowboys and cattle, Oklahoma County is now in the midst of an epidemic of gangs and street crime. Angry, impressionable teens are being pulled into the gangster lifestyle. For two pairs of at-risk girls who enter the Oklahoma County Jail intervention program, jail seems to be no scarier than the streets.

The mean streets of Los Angeles reach deep into San Bernardino County, where teens look to join gangs at an early age. For four teens that begin an intervention program at the San Bernardino County Jail, neither the deputies nor inmates seem to make an impact. Gerry, who sells drugs, threatens a deputy and Cesar, a thief, spits on an inmate.

A frustrated Texas mother ships her three defiant daughters 1000 miles, so that they must endure the nation s only overnight jail program in Richland County, South Carolina. (60 min.)

After being mobbed by a cellblock of screaming inmates, at-risk teens from St. Clair, IL, are shocked when the terror follows them outside the jail.

In San Bernardino County, outside LA, parents are losing control of their teens. Troublemaker Alexis tires of his parents' rules and calls immigration authorities on them.

At-risk siblings from Virginia are exposed to the deadly realities of life behind bars, leading to a life-shattering confession at the Western Tidewater Regional Jail.