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Diane Sawyer is back on prime time with a look at women in U.S. prisons

Diane Sawyer's report looks at why the United States incarcerates more women than any other nation in the world.
(Evan Agostini/Invision/AP)
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Former “ABC World News Tonight” anchor Diane Sawyer returns to primetime Friday night with a special on women in the U.S. prison system.

“A Nation of Women Behind Bars,” which airs on “20/20” Friday at 10 p.m. on ABC, is the result of an eight-month investigation in four prisons across the country.

The report looks at why the United States incarcerates more women than any other nation in the world. Sawyer also goes inside to examine women’s prison life now that TV viewers have seen it from a pop culture angle in the Netflix series “Orange Is the New Black.”

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Sawyer also talks to two of the youngest woman currently on death row in the United States and profiles a suburban working mom serving a 13½-year sentence for stealing $30,000 to fund her drug addiction. The report reveals that the fastest growing segment of the female prison population is white women convicted for crimes related to prescription drug use.

Sawyer finished a five-year stint on “ABC World News Tonight” last August. She remains with the news division for specials and investigations.

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