Scared Straight!

This became one of the most legendary documentaries ever made. I rented the video once and taped the show when it came on tv. Even though this film was made a quarter century ago, its effect is still as powerful and its message still as important. I have always supported programs like Scared Straight because there are some kids who don't respond to kindness. To all those bleeding heart people who think these convicts were so mean to these kids, just remember they didn't get there for being boy scouts. Good kids don't go into someone's prison. One of the lifers told the group that if someone had talked to him like that he wouldn't be in prison. Another lifer tells the group that the police can make a thousand mistakes but you can only make one. The speaker that scared the kids the most was this one guy named Ali. He had a loud screeching voice and seemed the most angry of the convicts. He told the kids "I'm here for murder, kidnapping, armed robbery...". He showed them his eye was missing, taken right out of its socket in a prison fight. I feel the convicts "in your face" approach was the right thing to do. They had experimented before with a kinder gentler approach, and guess what folks it didn't work! The kids actually wanted to go back to the prison because they thought that the convicts were a nice bunch of guys! I watched interviews they did with those kids before they went into Rahway and I wanted to slap the snot out of some of them at the things they were saying. I was thinking to myself, what a bunch of punks! I'll tell you this, they didn't act like that after it was all over. In 1998, they did a follow up special called Scared Straight Twenty Years Later. Danny Glover was the host of it. It profiled the kids and the convicts. Only two of the group that went to Rahway for the documentary became career criminals. One was in prison and one had died. The others were useful and productive members of society. None were rocket scientists, they had mostly blue collar jobs, but the point is they had lived honest lives and all of them talked of how greatful they were for the program and what it did for them. Three of the lifers had died (one of natural causes, one of AIDS and one of an overdose). Two of them were still in prison and the rest had been released and had lived honestly since. The one with the missing eye was so different. They interviewed him and he seemed like such a nice old guy. He had a beautiful family and said he had everything he wanted and that he loved himself. It was wonderful to see.

There is no denying that this documentary is really engaging, if only in a perverse sort of way. The grating, in-your-face approach was certainly ahead of its time and the ultimate message--however closely orchestrated and exaggerated--cannot be mistaken. It's interesting to note how we are assaulted with "good" here, rather than being assaulted with "evil", how we , as passive viewers, are pushed and pulled by the film without our own volition. We are "turned out" by the convicts and walk away broken but wiser. That said, the film reminds me somewhat of "Reefer Madness" and other such pieces of propaganda that force the audience into an ostensibly "real" hell-hole in an effort to scare us straight. Here we have a more street-wise but equally paranoid attempt to pummel at-risk kids with sordid tales that will lead them away from a life of crime. The kids in the film, although shown to be the focus of the warnings--the very center of attention, are really nothing more than supporting actors-- players, not recipients, of the message which borders on outright propaganda. The real audience is comprised of slightly rowdy and/or delinquent middle class kids who both are both fearful of and fascinated by deviant actions. For them, watching this film is equivalent to "slumming". It's "real" only in a very mediated way. With that in mind, it's arguable that this film's shock tactics do more to entertain than to instruct. Thus, on a fictional level the film is wonderful, but if we're looking for gritty cinema verite that just happens to coincide with governmental policies we will be disappointed.

A documentary that you will never forget once you see it, Scared Straight ought to be required viewing in every high school. As narrator Peter Falk points outs at the being of the film, it at first seems too good to be true that three hours in prison will make young trouble makers change their ways, but the subsequent prison visit shows that it is possible to change young lives in such a short time. The confrontation between the inmates and kids is riveting; you hang on to every word, and feel the tension in the room even while watching it on video. The change in the kids sent on the prison visit is astonishing, as shown in the interviews taped before and after the trip to Rahway. Before the trip, the kids all brag about their crimes and think they will never get caught; the interviews taken after the prison visit shows how effective the program was for each of them. Scared Straight is a powerful film; the setting and language will be offensive to some, but it is exactly those elements which make it such a forceful production. Though made back in the 1970s, it is still important and timely viewing.

I was born in Tottenham, North London in 1970, by the time I was fifteen I had witnessed the worst riots in Britain where a police constable was murdered. By the time I was sixteen I had decided that it did'nt matter if I ever became overweight because I was never going to run from anyone as I would have a gun and it was they who would need to do the running. I distinctively remember not caring how many times I got arrested as I was never going to get a job. I carried a knife, smoked weed and coke. I was bad, for my age, even the older crooks used to say to my elder brother, "Alan he's gonna make you look like a pussy when he's our age".

One night I stayed up late at home, well actually I snuck downstairs because in my parents house, when they went to bed, "you go to bed". Flicking through the channels I bumped into a documentary called the "Lifers Group". The second I clapped eyes on it I was in a trance, I saw, first hand, where my life was taking me. By the time the documentary finished I was soaking wet. The next morning at 0900 hours I was standing outside Surbiton Army Careers Office. Within 3 weeks I was conducting Basic Training for the Royal Green Jackets. Thanks to Scared Straight I've been decorated by HM the Queen Twice, I have a helicopter pilots licence, two dashing boys, a home of my own, direction the lot. Thankyou!

In order to get a young teen with a long history of crime and committed to a continued future in that area to completely turn around and choose to "go straight"--all within a time frame of under three hours--you know such a transformation must be very powerful, if not miraculous.

What could possibly take place within so short a time to prompt 16 out of 17 young subjects kick their criminal habits, without a hand being laid on them? Hypnotism? Some form of brain-washing technique? An invisible laser- wave bombardment?

Actually, none of these, only words . . . powerful phrases spoken often at maximum volume by volunteers from a maximum security cell block of the Rahway State Prison in New Jersey.

Without laying a hand their subjects, "hardened" convicts serving 30 year to life sentences, share the truth about prison life in harsh, gross details, leaving nothing to the imagination.

In a demonstration of emotional response, the youths are ordered to remove their shoes, which are pitched into a center pile. A volounteer inquires how the group feels when robbed of their possessions, pointing out that that's also how their robbery victims feel.

The manner in which the documentary is presented positions the viewer as a intimate participant in this moving exercise. One can feel the emotional intensity of the experience, as volunteers expose some of the terror of prison life which awaits these potential inmates.

It's not an easy experience to sit through, and the uncensored language may be too harsh or harrowing for some viewers. Too, the 50-minute documentary may seem much longer, because on the intensity of the subject.

However, the statistical 90% success-rate of this "scare-tactic" program is astounding. The volunteers benefit from their doing something constructive in helping to turn young lives around. The youths benefit from their changed attitude and altered life choices.

Academy Award Winner of Best Documentary in 1978, this Arnold Shapiro written and directed short, now on VHS, remains as chillingly compelling today as when first shown. Rahway is a model for similar potential programs across the country. The public is indebted to the gifts of these volunteers, who are completely in charge of creating and running this unique "scared-straight" program. Peter Falk is the effective narrator.