The septet of innocent citizens in the show hail from diverse backgrounds, each with their own honorable reasons for signing on. Pretty average upstanding Americans, it turns out. Why not? Oh, maybe the extraordinary liability of possible harm coming to any of Noel’s civilian moles deep undercover in the clink? 60 Days In raises the question immediately: What kind of person would sign up to take such a risk? So he came up with a LEGITIMATELY INSANE IDEA: Why not recruit normal, law-abiding citizens to go undercover in this very dangerous prison rife with drugs, violence, and lawlessness and have them operate as informants? He suspected both inmates and guards were in cahoots moving contraband throughout an invisible network he couldn’t reach. Noel says he staged raids to sweep narcotics out of his jail, but the problems persisted. “People were getting arrested on purpose because drugs were cheaper to get in jail,” he says, while security footage from the compound’s 300 cameras cut through scenes of violent cellblock brawls and shockingly conspicuous drug use. “Before I took office… the inmates were running the facility,” he tells the camera, posing for a glossy stand-up shot that gives 60 Days In an unfortunate sheen of opportunistic slime. The 12-episode series follows an “unprecedented” prison reform program conceived by Clark County, Indiana, Sheriff Jamey Noel, a ruddy-cheeked, stocky man who landed the sheriff’s gig only to find he inherited a county jail rotted through by corruption and extreme anarchy. Their latest docuseries 60 Days In treads such stomach-churning ground that, at times, you truly wonder if all seven of the average civilians who signed up to spend two months in a county jail-for (social) science and, y’know, ratings-will make it home in one piece. It’s always taken a certain alchemy of bravery and brio to even desire to become a reality TV star, but A&E Networks changed the otherwise glam reality game with some of realitydom’s most harrowingly human setups: real people sharing tough stories.
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