Scared Straight!

Description

Their crimes included assault and battery, arson, auto theft, breaking and entering, and possession and distribution of narcotics. Although they were still minors, these juvenile delinquents were already on a one-way path to doing hard time.

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Customer Reviews:

a classic.......2007-07-10

I didn't see this the first time it was aired on TV in 1978, but I do remember seeing a preview and pictures from it. Even so, it had a lasting impression on me. I always remembered seeing a light-complexioned African-American man with the mostashe who had one eye (Ali). I remember seeing the veins in his neck bulge out and remember him as someone who was very angry and someone you did not want to mess with. Recently, I've watched this documentary for the first time and was impressed.

The most fascinating aspect of this video is the follow up after 20 years, but they also did a follow up with some of them after 10 years as well. Did the Scared Straight program work? According to the people who run the program, it worked very well. Out of all of the kids in the program, only one of them became a convict in a maxium security prison, but quite a few of them have had run ins with the law and served lesser sentences in county jails. In my opinion, I don't know if the Lifers Programs does all that much good because how do you know the kids wouldn't have wound up being not too different from the way they became anyway had they not participated in the lifers program?

Out of all of the convicts in Scared Straight, only two managed to turn their lives around, the rest either died or were still incarcerated at the time of the film. The most memorable man of the film (Ali) who none who were in the program will ever forget was the last subject interviewed in this film. Did he manage to turn his life around or is he still incarcerated? You'll have to watch this to find out.

I highly recommend this documentary. I do not believe however that one can get scared into changing their life around completely. The fundamental core of who a person is will always be there regardless of how much people scare him. Real change must come from within.

Attention getter........2007-03-03

I teach a high school alternative class. The students I teach either have been or are on their way to jail.(Sad to say, yes, but it's true.) They started off rolling their eyes but when the video began, they sat up straight and watched. This video made them think. The students left my class that day knowing that they are not as tough as they thought in the beginning. WARNING: the language is explicit! But hey, they hear it anyway.

Bored Straight.......2006-06-12

This is NOT what I expected. I thought this was going to be a "documentary". I thought this was going to show the kids being booked, wearing the prison uniforms, eating with the inmates, going to the yard, and then being locked in their cells. None of that happened.
Instead, this entire film was shot in one room, with the kids in a big circle, and the inmates or (lifers), lecturing and yelling in their faces, about getting raped, shanked, and beaten to death in prison.
This is a good educational film to show at special schools for troubled youth. Or the Y.M.C.A..
This is not a movie to watch for fun or entertainment.

SCARED STRAIGHT IN THE WRONG WAY.......2006-03-02

This movie had a big impact on me. I attempted suicide two times
after I watched this, because I know I was headed for prison for a crime I did not commit.So much for the positive impact.
This proves the prison system completely fails as a correctional facility.The students or convicts should get no praise, what so ever,for this trash.

Watch your Cornhole, Bud.......2005-11-01

12 Poor White, Black, and Hispanic trash teenagers convicted of minor offenses take a trip to "the slammer" to meet up with some convicts.

The convicts goal is to scare the teenagers into cleaning up their act.

If not, the teens will have to face rape, subservience, torture, degradation, and death on a daily basis at the hands of other convicts.

The convicts get in the face of the teens and scare some sense into most of them.

Their is a follow up done on both the convicts and teens ten years later.

It turns out 3 teens/convicts died of AIDS related diseases, 2 of the convicts got out of prison, got busted for drugs in one case, sexual assault in the other. Quite the role models, eh?

If you have a troubled teen, you may want to have them watch this.

If not though, I can't say this was entertaining. I mean who wouldn't love an ignorant, muscle-bound, stinky-ass convict yelling at you at the top of his lungs about how he and his boys will be inserting something into your kiester if you choose to enter prison.

Not for the kiddies.

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