Beyond Scared Straight Summary

The United States prison system is considered today to be one of the most flawed and corrupt systems of the modern world. Given this fact, it is unsurprising that one of the most talked about issues in the US today is prison reform. Prison reform is a phrase which refers to the attempt to improve conditions inside prisons, establishing a more effective penal system, or implementing alternatives to incarceration. The US has spent the past twenty years gradually working to improve its prisons, and even recently strives to better the federal and state prison system as a whole. One of the main goals of prison reform is reducing recidivism, which is the chance of an incarcerated person re-offending. One of the main ways to do this is to give inmates ways to spend their time that will better them and prepare them to re-enter society as a fully productive, rehabilitated citizen. This facet of prison reform is the basis for the Prison Reform and Redemption Act of 2017. This bill, which was to be reviewed on Wednesday, April 25 but is

He discusses the unfair treatment these children who are locked up receive as well as the employees who so desperately fight to keep their job rather than help the children. Gatesville, a institution in Texas is described as having “job interviews that last ten minutes [as well as the] techniques to screen out potentially abusive applicants, such as screening, not being done” (Wooden, p.15). Another issue addressed in these sections is the fact that most, if not all children when sent to an institution, do not get a psychological evaluation. These children can come in, learn to obey the teachers and guards and be released without any psychological treatment to deal with the issue that sent them to the facility in the first place. Wooden also addresses the issue of the employees who work there need the facility more than most of the children do. This causes a problem which leaves more employees than children. Although there are many issues with these facilities themselves, how these children got into these facilities is Wooden’s next

Last Chance in Texas is an eye opening look into the efforts of the juvenile justice system to rehabilitate youth offenders and integrate them back into society. The book chronicles the research of author John Hubner who heard about a facility in Texas that ran an aggressive and one of the most successful, treatment programs in America for violent young offenders. He was particularly curious how a state like Texas, known for its hardcore attitude toward crime, could be a leader in rehabilitating violent and troubled youths. Through a span of over nine months at The Giddings School in Texas, Hubner discovered that making

“What I Learned as a Kid in Jail” is a speech given at a TEDTalk convention to a group of young men and women delivered by Ismael Nazario, a prison reform advocate where he does work for The Fortune Society, a non profit organization. Nazario was arrested when he was just under eighteen for robbery and sent directly to Rikers Island where he spent 300 days in solitary confinement, before ever being convicted of the crime. Nazario’s goal in delivering his speech to a group of younger men and women is to make them aware of the way correctional officers treat younger inmates and how inmates should be spending their time doing productive activities and understanding they do not have to go back to the life they were living. Nazario accomplished this goal by sharing personal stories from his past experiences.

Rehabilitation for at risk teens has been an ongoing issue that runs deep in certain communities. When kids at young ages are exposed to stress and have to cope early on with dysfunction they are denied the opportunity to mature and conditioned to commit thinking errors that perpetuate a young offender into an adult offender. To find ways to break this cycle John Hubner accounts his time on the Giddings State School Capital Offenders Program and how a group of counselors are able to combine many strategies in rehabilitating young offenders who have committed serious crimes. Young people convicted of serious crimes are often transferred to adult prisons that institutionalize young people to prison life only increasing the likely hood of

Whenever you imagine prison, you think up ideas and violent images that you have seen in the movies or on TV.   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are stereotypical of everyday life in prison.   Perhaps it could be a combination of your upbringing, horrific ideas about the punishment which our nation inflicts on those who violate its’ more serious laws that keeps people frightened just enough to lead a law-abiding life. Despite it’s success in keeping dangerous offenders off the streets, the American prison system fails in fulfilling its original design of restoring criminals to being productive members of society, it is also extremely expensive and wastes our precious tax dollars.

Children in adult prison are in severe danger. They suffer higher rates of physical and sexual abuse and suicide. Compared to those held in juvenile detention centers, youth held in adult jails are 7.7 times more likely to commit suicide. Five times more likely to be sexually assaulted. Twice as likely to be beaten by staff. 50% are more likely to be attacked with a weapon. In the public’s eye, the teens that suffer through this are just getting what they deserve. But in reality the restricted youth are at great risk of sexual assault. More than 1 in 10 youth in state juvenile facilities and large non-state facilities reported experiencing one or more incidents of sexual victimization by another youth or facility staff in the past 12 months or since admission, if less than 12 months. We agree that adult court is for the most serious and radical offenders. While it is true that juvenile offenders are waivered to adult courts because they are a menace to the community and the reasoning of their crime, did it occur to you that youths held in adult prison are at greater risk of sexual victimization? The National Prison Rape Elimination Commission found that “more than any other group of incarcerated persons, youth incarcerated with adults are probably at the highest risk for sexual abuse.” Some of you may say that this isn’t such a horrible thing compared to their sins. But this crucial and inhuman act may be more deadly than you think.

Despite the show’s wild popularity, it has received much criticism from experts in the juvenile justice community. “Scared Straight programs are developed by adults for kids, but kids don’t react the same way as adults, that’s why the television series is popular with adults, but unsuccessful with kids.” says James Finckenauer, Beyond Scared Straight has also diverted public support from programs that actually work in the areas of prevention. The heavily dramatized nature of the A&E series could be the reason parents desperately reach out to the Scared Straight programs despite its ineffectiveness, and the nature of the program has attracted public and political attention and praise (Klenowski, Bell, and Dodson). According to Dr. Finckenauer, kids do not respond to the extreme nature presented in Scared Straight programs because they do not see beaten down losers, rather, they see strong, muscular adults. Irene Sullivan, a retired judge from Florida and writer for The Juvenile Justice Information Exchange, explains "That’s why the television series is popular with adults, but unsuccessful with kids." Sullivan also criticizes Disney for, despite financial success with Beyond Scared Straight, having not donated a portion of its profits to one of the foundations that actually reach out to at-risk kids such as the Annie E. Casey Foundation, MacArthur Foundation, Eckerd Family Foundation, or the Henry and Ryla White Foundation.

The first suggestion that I will introduce is not inside the Juvenile prison when adolescents enter into the system but before when adolescents enter the system. A program called the “Beyond Scared Straight” program was built in the 1970’s for at-risk youth

In class we also discussed the recidivism statistics for these habitually violent juveniles who have determinate sentences and were released from TYC. For more than 50 percent of the juveniles released from TYC reoffend for at least one felony. Had these juveniles been tried as adults and received more severe sentences, their felonies could have been avoided. Although the methods used by the staff in the Hubner book seemed to make a difference while the juveniles were there, once they left, it didn’t appear that it made a difference at all. Many of the juveniles were able to stay out of trouble for about a year, but they recommitted afterwards.

A book that relates to the modern show Beyond Scared Straight would be The Messenger as they both detail the efforts that it takes to get people to see the truth of their realty. The main protagonist of the story I am The Messenger finds himself tasked with the quest to better the livers of others after he thwarts a potential bank robbery. Ed helps those who he meets overcome whatever burden they may carry by showing them the error of their ways and giving them a certain message tailored to whichever situation he is in. He does this not because he’s a nice guy who wants to help all, but rather because he’s being forced to. At first Ed is reluctant to undertake the mighty quest thrusted upon him by the someone he doesn’t even know but, after

The primary subject of this video is keeping control of the facility with the use of zero tolerance policies for the inmates of Tent City. It focuses on a new inmate named Ryan Merlina, who was “convicted of forgery, burglary, and most recently, possession of methamphetamine” (Films Media Group, 2007). Merlina, who has a long history of drug use and has been in and out of the juvenile system for a considerable amount of his teen years, at age nineteen came to Tent City, an adult facility (Films Media Group, 2007). In addition to the videos depiction of the circumstances faced by staff and inmates, it chronicles Merlinas’ personal struggles with his journey through incarceration at Tent City. On an Internet video, Films Media Group (2007) states that, the court offered Merlina a reduced sentence in exchange for him pleading guilty. “If he behaves himself, he'll serve just six months at Tent City. But if he messes up, he'll get 12 years in state prison” (Films Media Group, 2007). At Tent City, the inmates are not allowed to have certain things such as sugar, tobacco, drugs, and weapons. The prison system employs the Special Response Team

Rehabilitation is facilitated by the offering of courses, to help the offender address his/her behaviour which society has labelled as “wrong” or inappropriate (Peterson, 1989; Shaffer, 1993). Therefore, a con of the strategy may be that the offenders are unable to access courses that could assist them in rehabilitation. Another purpose of the detention centre for young people may be through the use of a military structure to try and impress on them that they have done wrong (Munice, Hughes & McLaughlin 2002).

In America, everyone seems to have a different idea about what goes on behind the grey, dismal walls of prison. For many of us, the idea itself conjures images of coiled barbed wire fences, chains dragging across the ground, somber faces behind rusting bars and those bright orange jumpsuits. These visions come from a variety of sources-- movies we’ve seen, the stories that we’ve been told and our own imagination that is constantly at work. However, the reality of prison life in America can only come from those who have stepped foot inside. Through memoirs written by Danner Darcleight and Ted Conover, I’ve had to reconsider some of these previously held visions of prison life. While Conover writes about the abusive relationship between the correctional officers and the prisons, through Darcleight’s writing we see the rewarding powers of having social life and the hopeful possibility for anyone to attain redemption. The first chapter of Concrete Carnival, by Danner Darcleight, as well as Guarding Sing Sing by Ted Conover has led me to re-evaluate these previously held visions of prison life, including the relationship between guards and inmates, social systems, and redemption.

When the average person thinks of jails and prisons, they typically think of horrible criminals being locked up in order to protect the rest of society. They think justice has been served, and those who did the crime are now doing the time. But what goes on inside a prison, and inside the minds of the inmates? What about after those offenders have served their time, and are now being released back into the general public? People don’t really think about how prison affects a person’s mentality, or how incarceration impacts both relationships the inmate currently has, or ones that will develop in the future. Although it isn’t something most people think of first, incarceration is an experience that can have a negative psychological impact on a person for quite some time.