my $data = <<'DATA';
{"foo":[
        {"a":"aA","b":"bA","c":"cA"},
        {"a":"aB","b":"bB","c":"cB"},
        {"a":"aC","b":"bC","c":"cC"}
]}
DATA

use JSON;

my $json        = JSON->new->utf8;
my $perl_scalar = $json->decode( $data );