Here you get JSONObject so change this line:

JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(readlocationFeed); 

with following:

JSONObject jsnobject = new JSONObject(readlocationFeed);

and after

JSONArray jsonArray = jsnobject.getJSONArray("locations");
for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
    JSONObject explrObject = jsonArray.getJSONObject(i);
}

Just convert use JSONArray,

import java.util.Arrays;
import org.json.JSONArray;
String[] inputs = new String[] {"foo", "bar"};
JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(Arrays.asList(inputs));

This should help you.

Edit:

Maybe this is what you need:

ArrayList<String> stringArray = new ArrayList<String>();
JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray();
for(int i = 0, count = jsonArray.length(); i< count; i++)
{
    try {
        JSONObject jsonObject = jsonArray.getJSONObject(i);
        stringArray.add(jsonObject.toString());
    }
    catch (JSONException e) {
        e.printStackTrace();
    }
}

Remove the slashes:

String json = {"phonetype":"N95","cat":"WP"};

try {

    JSONObject obj = new JSONObject(json);

    Log.d("My App", obj.toString());

} catch (Throwable t) {
    Log.e("My App", "Could not parse malformed JSON: \"" + json + "\"");
}

Something like this:

ArrayList<String> jsonStringToArray(String jsonString) throws JSONException {

    ArrayList<String> stringArray = new ArrayList<String>();

    JSONArray jsonArray = new JSONArray(jsonString);

    for (int i = 0; i < jsonArray.length(); i++) {
        stringArray.add(jsonArray.getString(i));
    }

    return stringArray;
}

This is how to initialize a JSON parser:

JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);

That will give you the entire string as a Json Object. From there, pull out an individual array as a JsonArray, like this:

JSONArray jsonArray = jsonObject.getJSONArray("LotPrizes");

To access each "LotPrizes" you can use for loop logic:

for(int i=0;i<jsonArray.length();i++)
{
  JSONObject curr = jsonArray.getJSONObject(i);

  prize = curr.getString("Prize")

//Do stuff with the Prize String here
//Add it to a list, print it out, etc.
}

EDIT: Final code after your JSON edit:

JSONArray jsonArray = null;
String jsonString = <your string>
String currPrize = null;

JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(jsonString);

jsonArray = jsonObject.getJSONArray("data");

for(int i=0;i<jsonArray.length();i++)
{
    JSONArray currLot = jsonArray.getJSONObject(i);

    for(int j=0; j<currLot.length();j++)
    {
        JSONobject curr = currLot.getJSONObject(j);

        currPrize = curr.getString("Prize");

        //Do something with Prize
    }
}

This code is functional and I'm using an almost identical version in my code. Hope this (finally) works for you.

The crash is caused by an invalid String result

print the result passed to parseBussinessArray method and see what is its value when crash happens

You need to parse your broken JSON twice.
One time to get list of strings:

val listOfStrings = Gson().fromJson(wordReview, mutableListOf<String>().javaClass)

And the other to parse each string.
Either as a map:

val asMap = Gson().fromJson(listOfStrings[0], mutableMapOf<String, Any>().javaClass)

Or as an object:

data class MyObj(val assignUser: Boolean,
                 val transliteration: String,
                 val lessonNumber: Float,
                 val seen: Float,
                 val arabicWord: String,
                 val translation: String,
                 val priority: Float)

val asObject = Gson().fromJson(listOfStrings[1], MyObj::class.java)

To convert it back to string once modified you can use:

Gson().toJson(asObject)

If you're talking about using the JSON in java library, then since your input string is a JSON object, not a JSON array, you should first load it using JSONObject:

String response=getResponseFromServer();
JSONObject jsonObject = new JSONObject(response);

After that, you can use toJSONArray() to convert a JSONObject to JSONArray given an array of key strings:

String[] names = JSONObject.getNames(jsonObject);
JSONArray jsonArray = jsonObject.toJSONArray(new JSONArray(names));

For sure, data is a String (character surrounded by quotes), it can't be read as a JSONArray.

If you can't make your php to generate a JSON array, what you can do on Android size, is to get the data string with :

String data = httpResult.getString("data");

then you can create a JSONARRAY with :

JSONArray constructor

JSONArray dataArray = new JSONArray(data)

Try this:

for (int i = 0; i < jsonArr.length(); i++) {
    JSONObject obj = jsonArr.getJSONObject(i);
    String modificateur = obj.optString(Artifact.JSON_MODIFICATEUR);
    String date = obj.optString(Artifcat.JSON_DATEMODIFICATION);
    Modificateurs mod = new Modificateurs(modificateur, date);
    mods.add(mod);
}

As long as it's a valid JSONArray to begin with, then yes.

The problem is not the JSONArray.toString(), as @Selvin mentioned.

From JSONArray source:

/**
 * Encodes this array as a compact JSON string, such as:
 * <pre>[94043,90210]</pre>
 */
@Override public String toString() {
    try {
        JSONStringer stringer = new JSONStringer();
        writeTo(stringer);
        return stringer.toString();
    } catch (JSONException e) {
        return null;
    }
}

/**
 * Encodes this array as a human readable JSON string for debugging, such
 * as:
 * <pre>
 * [
 *     94043,
 *     90210
 * ]</pre>
 *
 * @param indentSpaces the number of spaces to indent for each level of
 *     nesting.
 */
public String toString(int indentSpaces) throws JSONException {
    JSONStringer stringer = new JSONStringer(indentSpaces);
    writeTo(stringer);
    return stringer.toString();
}

The problem is that you need to convert your ChecklistAnswer to JSON object first for your JSONArray to work properly.

Again from Javadoc:

/**
 * A dense indexed sequence of values. Values may be any mix of
 * {@link JSONObject JSONObjects}, other {@link JSONArray JSONArrays}, Strings,
 * Booleans, Integers, Longs, Doubles, {@code null} or {@link JSONObject#NULL}.
 * Values may not be {@link Double#isNaN() NaNs}, {@link Double#isInfinite()
 * infinities}, or of any type not listed here.

...