Preteen girl looking at a cell phone with her parents

Family movie night? There's an app for that

Download our new mobile app on iOS and Android.

Parents' Guide to

60 Days In

By Joyce Slaton, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 15+

Reality prison expose is absorbing but ethically dicey.

TV A&E Reality TV 2016
60 Days In Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this TV show.

Community Reviews

age 17+

Based on 4 parent reviews

age 17+

Stop show until quarantine is over

The Sheriff's or producers or both are idiots. The show should have been held up at least until the quarantine was over. How is anyone going to learn anything while they are locked up for, now, 21 hours. It's impossible. To me, it is just to hard to humanly take and they're not getting you anything to help the jail. Also, if you want to know if there are drugs in the jail, how do you suppose they do that unless you let them get them. I have been watching this show from the beginning and this the worst one. Get them out if quarantine so they can do something for you. They're just being locked up to be locked up. STUPID
age 16+

Not real, it's staged

The last episode I watched there was a inmate in holding looking right at the camera showing $1700. Cash in a holding cell would never happen in reality that I have ever heard of. I think it's good for kids to see how a jail works and looks like, it's pretty realistic.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say (4 ):
Kids say (2 ):

Scary and interesting if a bit ethically suspect, this show satisfies the curiosity of non-offenders, who might wonder, "how would I handle it if I were imprisoned?" Watching the innocent mingle with the (presumed) guilty, however, has a side-effect: the viewer is complicit in a lie, since prisoners who appear on the show are told that they're being filmed for a "documentary." Were they told that it would be shown on national television and appear more as a reality show? We are shown the inmates signing releases, but not their informed consent, which adds a sleazy and unwelcome layer to this program. Nonetheless, it's absorbing enough, generally centering on the kind of drama that prison shows, reality or scripted, tend to center on: fights, people screaming, arguments over scarce resources, furtive prison sex. It may scare teens straight, but adults won't learn anything new.

TV Details

  • Premiere date: March 10, 2016
  • Cast: Jamey Noel
  • Network: A&E
  • Genre: Reality TV
  • TV rating: TV-14
  • Last updated: May 21, 2023

Did we miss something on diversity?

Research shows a connection between kids' healthy self-esteem and positive portrayals in media. That's why we've added a new "Diverse Representations" section to our reviews that will be rolling out on an ongoing basis. You can help us help kids by suggesting a diversity update.

Common Sense Media's unbiased ratings are created by expert reviewers and aren't influenced by the product's creators or by any of our funders, affiliates, or partners.

See how we rate