Too Graphic for National Geographic : Television: A segment on life in the L.A. County Jail has been removed from Sunday’s edition of ‘Explorer,’ deemed unsuitable for family viewing.

A documentary about life in the Los Angeles County Jail has been removed from Sunday’s edition of “National Geographic Explorer,” because senior management at the National Geographic Society deemed it unsuitable for family viewing.

“It’s 40 minutes of well-done reporting but I don’t think that it’s appropriate,” said Gilbert M. Grosvenor, president and chairman of the National Geographic Society. “It’s a tough, hard look at a jail.”

Sources in National Geographic’s television division defended the program, with one suggesting that the show was killed because it turned the National Geographic microscope on the United States instead of a foreign country.

“You run out of exotic tribes after a while,” complained an “Explorer” contributor. “Our feeling in pursuing this film was that this is reality, and we should bring this reality to our viewers because it’s out there.”

The documentary, “L.A. Behind Bars,” was originally slated to run this week as part of the two-hour “Explorer” magazine series, which airs on Sundays at 6 p.m., with repeats on Mondays at 9 p.m. and Saturdays at 5:05 a.m. on the TBS cable channel. The film includes some profanity and a scene in which a female guard describes a violent act by inmates. Although the film shows no violence, it records an inmate’s detailed description of creating and using a weapon made with a toothbrush and a razor blade.

Producer Mitchell Koss said that he initially proposed the documentary to National Geographic with the idea that it would take an anthropological look at the culture in the L.A. County facility, the nation’s largest jail.

“We had free run of the place,” Koss said. “It’s pretty horrifying. It’s kind of the black hole of Los Angeles--it just sucks people in.”

Tom Simon, executive producer of the “Explorer” series, said that he was trying to find another venue for the film, perhaps on TBS. But he said that if it does air, the National Geographic name will probably be removed from the credits--even though it was made as an in-house project.

Grosvenor dismissed critics of the decision as insignificant and as “moles,” saying, “I am surrounded by moles.” When asked about the contention among the film’s supporters that it was a form of cultural anthropology, not unlike forays National Geographic has made into tribal communities or other foreign societies, Grosvenor said, “I don’t buy it.”

But some staff members said they were worried that the move would ignite criticism that the organization does not turn its eye on American society, unless the scene depicted is completely whitewashed.

“ ‘Geographic’ ideally brings the viewer to a world where they’ve never been before, and that’s exactly what this film does,” said a source. “It takes the viewer somewhere that’s totally extraordinary and terrifying and horrifying. What’s the difference between doing that and going to the streets of Calcutta? That’s also a world that’s different and far, and there are horrifying things about it.”

“L.A. Behind Bars” will be replaced in Sunday’s “Explorer” program by “LifeSize,” a natural history film about the sizes of animals.

Free-lance writer Robert Koehler contributed to this article.