Scared Straight Program Essay

The state juvenile corrections systems in the U.S. detain youth in several different types of facilities such as, group homes, residential treatment centers, wilderness programs, boot camps, country-run youth facilities, and some of these are locked or secured through staff. Richard Mendel stated (2012), “The latest official national count of youth in correctional custody, conducted in 2010, found that roughly 48,000 U.S. youth were confined in correctional facilities or other residential programs each night on the order of a juvenile delinquency court (p 1).” This amount of juveniles in these facilities is roughly the same amount of adolescents that live in cities like Louisville, Kentucky or Portland Oregon. America relies heavily on

The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice Office of Prevention and Victim Services provides voluntary youth crime prevention programs through the state of Florida. The Florida Department of Juvenile Justice mission is to increase public safety by reducing juvenile delinquency through operative prevention, intervention and treatment services that builds up families for a turn around of a brighter future of a troubled youth. The main functions of these programs as will be indicated in this paper are designed to reduce juvenile crime and protect public safety. These programs that will be stated main focused is to help those high-risk juveniles and those who display problem behaviors such as ungovernability, truancy, running away from home and other pre-delinquent behaviors. The state of Florida addresses these problems by contracting this delinquency programs prevention services and awarding grants to this local providers throughout the state of Florida.

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   Outdated clichés consisting of men eating stale bread and drinking dirty water are only a small fraction of the number of horrible, yet “just” occurrences which are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.

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

The criminal justice system is well talked about throughout communities, law officials, and etc. Through social media we hear about the criminals who go into prison and the prisoners who return to prison, but never about the ones who change or learn their lesson from it. It is believed that once someone has been arrested and sent to prison or jail, it is likely that they will return to their again at some point in their lifetime. We believe this because we think these criminals were made this way and don’t have the ability to change. The memoir, Dreams from the Monster Factory, written by Sunny Schwartz and David Boodell, talks about the life inside a prison and jail and how Sunny’s RSVP program gives prisoners the ability to change their life around. Dreams from the Monster Factory was Sunny’s experience about what she saw working behind bars. She directed her book towards the public and other jails around her to try to bring awareness about how the RSVP program came and helped out more prisoners to become less violent. Sunny proved this by giving personal stories from real prisoners, how the RSVP program came to help them. This essay is directed towards anyone who hasn’t read this book. In the memoir, Dreams from the Monster Factory, Sunny Schwartz and David Boodell use rhetorical appeals, such as ethos, pathos, and logos, to show her audience that by implanting the RSVP program

In the United States of America, there are several different types of incarceration facilities that criminal offenders, both convicted and accused my end up. The two most distinguishable different facilities post-conviction are the state prison systems and the federal bureau of prisons. These units house a wide array of criminals, from the lowest of low scum to the high profile “Hannibal Lector” types. The range of crimes is equally different, from sexual offences and aggravated murder charges all of the way down to so called white collar crimes and too many DWI’s. In short, the intricate designs and diversity contribute to an experience all to its

The reality for these teens is, “death isn’t just a possibility–it’s a reality they accept.” But Piquero hopes government officials see the urgency in his research and will help give disadvenataged teens more opportunities to become productive members of society. These kids need education and jobs. Chad Houser, exectutive director of Dallas-based Cafe Momentum, offers young men coming out of jail internships. Many of the men he helps realize the pride of completing an honest day’s work. “A simple pat on the back can make all the difference for disadvantaged juvenile offenders.” For many, they “feel a sense of approval and joy that comes in living up to expectations.” Their attitudes begin to change when they see they have something to live and word towards, instead of “accepting their dismal circumstances as fate.”

‘Scared Straight’ programs were first implemented in the U.S. in the 1970’s. However, they became nationally popular in the aftermath of the 1978 Arnold Shapiro documentary Scared Straight!, in which a group of delinquents are berated by a group of convicts known as “lifers” for three hours. At the end of the film, the appropriately terrified teenagers state that they have decided that they do not want to go to jail (Lowry, 1999). Scared Straight programs allow juveniles who are criminal offenders or deemed at-risk for becoming such to have contact with adult prisoners. The process varies across the country according to the prison, and can include jail tours, one-on-one conversations with prisoners, or even being integrated into the facility and living life as a prisoner for a day. As their name would suggest, these programs’ purpose is to discourage juveniles from committing further criminal activity; the expected outcome is that a child who is exposed to the undesirable conditions of prison life will be deterred from future delinquency due to shock and fear. Unfortunately, this is not rarely the case. Scared Straight programs are unproductive at best and counterproductive at worst, and allowing them to continue is a strain on the community as a whole.

Since the 1970s, America’s prison population rate has risen 700%. Despite the U.S. comprising only 5% of the world’s population, it is the largest jailer with 25% of the world’s prison population with one in 99 adults in prison and one in 31 under some type of correctional control (Mass Incarceration Problems, 2014, p. 1). According to 2013 data, 2.2 million are currently incarcerated in U.S. prisons or jails (Incarceration, 2013, para. 1), a figure that indicates a rising problem with prison overcrowding. While prison overcrowding increases the economic burdens on local and state governments, common factors leading to the high prison population is linked to the need for improved juvenile programs that deter criminal behavior and fund for rehabilitation for reentry into mainstream society. With effective programs to deter juvenile crime and to aid in offender reentry coupled with sentencing reforms, overcrowding in the nation’s prisons would decline.

From 1973 to 2000 the imprisonment rate in the U.S has increased by a multiple of four, while the actual crime rate saw no such increase over that period. (Visher and Travis, 2003, p. 89-90) Historically, the prison system in America had always been marred with inadequacies and failures, specifically in rehabilitating prisoners. The significant increase in incarceration rates have put an even greater burden on the already inefficient prison system. In reality, the prison system does not actually function as a means of rehabilitating prisoners, and real purpose of the institute is to basically keep the “deplorables” of society away from the public eye. It serves as a tool to degrade members of society to the bottom of the social ladder and strip them of their most basic rights. For many prisoners, rehabilitation comes in the form of “corrections” which is largely characterized by the humiliation, abuse, and subjugation of inmates by correction officers. This form of rehabilitation is largely malicious and ineffective in its procedures and outcomes. Often times inmates, leave prison more emotionally and physically damaged that they were upon entrance as a consequence of the dismal conditions they were subjugated to. The current high rates of recidivism have testified to the fact that our prisons have failed as a deterrent. As a result, it must be

hildren at risk for becoming delinquent. The programs are designed to deter participants from future offending by providing firsthand observations of prison life and interaction with adult inmates. We briefly summarize the results of a Campbell Collaboration review. Our review indicates that not only do these programs fail to deter crime, but they actually lead to more offending behavior. Government officials permitting this program need to adopt rigorous methods of evaluation to ensure that they are not causing more harm to the very citizens they've pledged to protect. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Other organization think that Juvenile delinquency should receive more local, state, and national attention, they feel that there are no straightforward

The article published by Mother Jones, discusses the practices of isolation at juvenile prisons in the U.S. and the psychological effects on teenagers and goes into details regarding the United States Justice Department's investigations into juvenile facilities' practices. The article goes into more detail with concern of a 17-year-old boy called Kenny. Kenny has experience locked in isolation cell and the effect on his mental health, and a brief history of the practice of isolating prisoners in the United States. This interviewee is a boy who was a juvenile prisoner in Ohio who have spend “ 82 days in the hole—locked in his own room or an isolation cell-once for 19 days at a stretch, according to court documents” (Liebelson). He was diagnosed with attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder and being locked up in isolation was psychological torment “I wasn’t even thinking straight, banging my head on the door and everything else. I was acting like a crazy person,” he said. “I had some of the roughest nights in there that I’ve ever had in my life”

The National Institute Justice states that juvenile crime rates have fallen over 55% than its peak in 1994, but it still a cause for public concern. Actual reasons for this decline are elusive, but there is debate over the facilitation of jail time, or long-term therapy sessions as punishment for the juveniles for their crimes. According to an executive summary by Alex Piquiero and Laurence Steinberg, “Rehabilitation Versus Incarceration of Juvenile Offenders: Public Preferences in Four Models for Change States”, the public has expressed more favor for rehabilitation efforts. Piquiero and Steinberg, who are professors in criminal justice and psychology, surveyed a random sample with questions that pertained to

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.