Audience Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Binding: VHS Tape
EAN: 9786302037296
Format: NTSC
ISBN: 6302037298
Label: Lightening Video
Manufacturer: Lightening Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Lightening Video
Release Date: 1990-02-07
Running Time: 52
Studio: Lightening Video

Customer Rating:
Summary: Scared Straight
Comment: This movie was great. No complaints. It never gets old and even after all these years your kids can still learn from it.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: a classic
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Attention getter.
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Bored Straight
Comment: 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.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: SCARED STRAIGHT IN THE WRONG WAY
Comment: 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.

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