Prison life is horrific, and for young offenders, it’s even worse. More than 30 years after its release, Scared Straight continues to act as a deterrent.
Everyone knows prison is brutal. Most would rather not think about it.
The men inside casually discuss committing appalling crimes. They wallow in cold, cramped cells with their volatile, dangerous peers.
Some are young when they first committed their crimes, like Eric Smith, who at 13 lured 4-year-old Derrick Robie into the woods near his house, strangled him, and smashed in his face with rocks.
More often than not, they’ve had horrific childhoods. This is where my sympathy lies—with criminals like David Mason, who was executed in 1993 after going on a killing spree. In Mason’s case, were the murders committed the when he pulled the trigger? Or did they originate 15 years earlier, when he was locked in a windowless room dubbed “the dungeon” by his fundamentalist Christian parents? When he was beaten with pancake turner, and forced to wear a soiled diaper on his head to school whenever he wet the bed? When his father would strap him to his workbench, gag him, and beat him unconscious?
Once incarcerated, everyone deals with prison life differently. Do you give up? Lash out? Or do you adapt? We can’t even speculate how we’d react, because we exist within a context and possess a perspective that is so far removed from that of prison life.
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Some prisoners pass the days focusing on old (or newfound) passions, using what little resources they have. They make doll houses, paint on the backs of postcards with M&Ms, write novels, or compose music.
Others unravel further behind bars.
“When I got incarcerated, I declared war on the state of Indiana,” announces “predatory” inmate Darren Bailey on MSNBC’s Lockup: Raw. “They gave me an excessive sentence as a result of my crime. Well, I’m giving you excessive violence as the result of my anger.”
The HBO documentary Gladiator Days examines the case of Utah State Prison inmate Troy Kell. In 1994 Kell, a white supremacist who was already serving a life sentence for committing a murder at the age of 18, killed black inmate Lonnie Blackmon in plain sight of prisoners and guards.
It was all caught on tape.
In the video, Kell methodically stabs Blackmon 67 times as unarmed guards watch behind locked-down doors. Once Blackmon stops breathing, Kell, adrenaline surging, paces around the room, drying his bloodied hands with a towel. “Let’s get some white power jumpin’ off in here,” he barks. Fellow inmates hoot and holler from their cells. A full five minutes pass before guards dressed in riot gear bull-rush the room to subdue Kell.
His interview is chilling:
Producer: Why did you stab him so many times?
Kell: All I can tell is—he kept moving. I just stabbed the shit out of him until he didn’t move anymore.
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Scared Straight conveys, first hand, the realities of prison life: the unpredictability, the loneliness, the monotony, and the inmates—like Troy Kell, locked up for life—who have nothing to lose. It’s a dog-eat-dog world, where guards exist merely to maintain order, not to protect the lives and well-being of individual inmates.
Teens who enter adult prisons are most vulnerable. They often have no idea what they’re in for, but the reality sinks in quickly—usually at the first meal—when they’re harassed by hardened inmates who taunt and threaten them, or coo at the “fresh meat” before their eyes.
This is the beauty of Arnold Shapiro’s 1978 documentary Scared Straight: it provides at-risk teens a preview of the path they’re on, a taste of the future before them, while giving them the opportunity to change their ways.
Shapiro’s film documents a group of juvenile delinquents, cocky and self-assured, as they enter prison for the first time. Their confident demeanor quickly crumbles as they sit helplessly before the “lifers” who berate and verbally abuse them, while divulging snapshots of the misery they endure on a daily basis.
When we get sexual desires, who do you think we get? And don’t tell me each other!
Upon leaving the prison, a number of the shell-shocked teens vow to avoid prison at all costs.
30 years later, the film, which won an Oscar for best documentary feature, is still brutally effective.
“I still get comments about Scared Straight from people who tell me they were juvenile offenders,” Shapiro explains. “Their parents made them watch it, and it was either the single cause of their change or a major factor.”
Shapiro continues to be amazed at Scared Straight‘s success; it has since become a cultural icon (see: Prison Mike from The Office), and a number of prisons have instituted similar programs.
“When I made Scared Straight, I had no idea it was going to become an iconic film. I had no idea I would continue to receive letters from parents and teachers and young people, year after year after year, once it was in educational distribution. It just never went away.”
Click here to see part of the film. For more Doc Talks, check out the Documentary Channel’s website.
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Sorry to comment so late, but I just saw this, and there is strong evidence that “Scared Straight” programs DO NOT work and even increase risk for some young first-time and near-first-time offenders. Of course there will always be individual exceptions to any general rule, but policy decisions have to be based on promoting the greatest good (not to mention “do no harm”) to the population at large, and really should be guided by empirical evidence when its available. “Evidence indicates that “Scared Straight” and similar programs are simply not effective in deterring criminal activity. In fact, these types of… Read more »
Really cannot comment as to the empirical evidence but I can comment on how the original documentary affected myself and my peers. IT WORKED. What ever glamor may have been associated with the ‘thugs’and ‘cool guys’ quickly dissipated when I saw the first Scared Straight hosted by Peter Falk.
Thank you, Michael. I am glad you were able to use it to turn yourself around.
Gregory, your argument is flawed — just because youth imprisonment has increased in the last 30 years does not indicate a problem with “Scared Straight”. Overall, violent crime committed by youth in the US has been on a strong downward trend over the past couple decades. Increases in incarceration can be attributed (partly) to changes in the criminal justice system such as “widening the net” (more activities are now defined as illegal) and mandatory minimum sentencing laws. However, your conclusion is indeed correct, Gregory. Weston nails it on the head. Where is the research? Meta-analysis show a high likelihood that… Read more »
Anonymous, you had a good post until you decided to rub in a little insult at the end. Stick to the facts, please, and let your readers (including Nick) draw their own conclusions.
Considering the fact that youth incarceration has increased tremendously in the 30 years since Scared Straight was initiated, it’s safe to say that Scared Straight DOES NOT WORK.
I don’t get it Nick. You state a premise ” Why Scared Straight Still Works” but you don’t seem to have done any investigation as to whether it does (or does not) in fact work.
It’s easy basic research. How many kids went through the program? What was their criminal history before and after the program? How do their criminal histories after the program compare to other kids in their socio-economic group?
It may work. It may not work. You state that it still works but I don’t see what evidence you base that determination on.
Yeah, this is what I want to see. How many kids did it keep out of jail? Yes, watching even these short clips makes my hair stand on end, but did it have lasting effect? Or do jails contain a significant number of Scared Straight graduates?